The Making of The Empire Strikes Back, by J. W. Rinzler

As regular readers of this blog will know, I'm not only a big fan of the original "Star Wars" trilogy but also of behind-the-scenes books.  Having read J. W. Rinzler’s excellent “The Making of Return Of The Jedi” earlier this year (you can read the blog here) , I decided I wanted to go back into the wonderfully informative environment he created and asked for this for my birthday.  Luckily for me, since I’m so difficult to buy for (apparently), it was gratefully bought.

Using mainly contemporary interviews (from late 1977 through to 1980), with a few conducted in the 90s and 00s, this covers the whole of the production from the opening of “Star Wars” (which took everyone by complete surprise) to the opening of “Empire Strikes Back” and touches on pretty much every aspect of the production in between.  As with the Jedi book, the research is thorough and extensive, which even extends to captioning pictures and identifying people way in the background.  The success of “Star Wars” does help the cause a bit here, since “Empire” benefited from an accomplished unit publicist in Alan Arnold, who later published “Once Upon A Galaxy: A Journal of the making of The Empire Strikes Back”, which I read a couple of years ago.  A thick paperback, it was the official making of (there was also a magazine too) and Rinzler quotes from it extensively, whilst also drawing on other interviews Mr Arnold made at the time but which have previously been unpublished.  At first I thought this overlap of information might be too repetitive but it isn’t at all, with the longest lift (where Irvin Kershner was miked up on the Carbon Freezing set) being interspersed with later comments made by the principals concerned.

By the end of 1977, George Lucas was already at work on the sequel and brought in Leigh Brackett to shape the screenplay.  The script conference transcripts published here only have his contributions (no explanation is made as to why) but they’re very interesting, with the bare bones of the film clearly already in place in his mind (though he gets as stuck here with Vader living in a castle as he did the Empire planet during the Jedi conferences).  As it was, Brackett died before she could work on the second draft and virtually none of what she wrote was used, though Lucas ensured she retained a screen credit.  Instead, Lawrence Kasdan was drafted in - he’d just written the “Raiders Of The Lost Ark” script - and his approach is clearly like a breath of fresh air, as he questions ideas and motives and suggests (on occasion and usually unsuccessfully) that Lucas might not be right.

Irvin Kershner talking with Marcia Lucas, George's then wife.

Adamant that he wouldn’t direct, Lucas suggested his old USC film tutor Irvin Kershner for the role with the latter agreeing after several conversations (I imagine the fact that his son was ten-years-old also played a part).  Kersh, as he’s affectionately called by everyone, was clearly a different director, keen to take his time on composition and although Lucas had concerns about producer Gary Kurtz’s ability to rein him in, he chose not to air them - a decision he would later come to regret.

As well as the pre-production of the film, the book also follows the formation of several Lucasfilm entities, including Black Falcon (the licensing arm, which I only discovered the existence of in the Jedi book), how the various divisions were structured and the plans for Skywalker ranch.  Having read “Skywalking” (which is not listed in the bibliography at the back of this), I love that whole late seventies period, as the company sets up and operates out of The Egg Company in LA and ILM hides in plain sight as The Kerner Company in San Anselmo and Rinzler is thorough in his exploration of this period.  It’s also interesting to see how the merchandising helped the entire operation, with Black Falcon lending money to both Lucasfilm and ILM to get things moving.  Best of all though is the information about the ranch - the plans, the daytrips, the fourth of July picnics - and Rinzler paints a wonderful picture of the era, the atmosphere remembered fondly by all those involved in it, a tight and small close-knit group that felt like a family.  But even as the production wore on and the dealings with the banks got more intense and Lucas was pushed into an executive role with his companies (Lucasfilm funded the whole project), things were changing.  Lucy Wilson - Kurtz’s assistant and one of the original employees - comments that where once she and Lucas could say hi and chat, she soon had to book appointments to see him.  As it is, this seems as troubling to Lucas as anyone else.

On location in Finse, Mark Hamill is filmed on one of the Tauntauns

Production began with the main unit at Finse in Norway and it seems to have been a disaster from the beginning.  Weather delayed shooting, Kershner took his time and things got away from Kurtz, leading to his eventual estrangement from the Lucasfilm group, with Howard Kazanjian (who would go on to produce Jedi) getting more involved.

Things were more settled at Elstree Studios in London, though Kershner, working with his DoP Peter Suschitzky to produce the best work possible, played havoc with Lucas’ plans.  As his pace upset the schedule and pushed the film over budget, issues with cashflow and the banks kicked in, adding further to the stresses that Lucas was trying to hide from his director.

Rinzler covers every aspect of the production in equal detail (I loved the discovery that the filming was juggled to fit the sets - since the Falcon was built full-size, it pretty much stayed where it was and new sets were built around it) and doesn’t shy away from some of the more candid conversations.  Lucas was a large presence on set (but not to the extent that he would be on “Jedi”) and although he takes every opportunity to point out he’s not the director (he didn’t do any of the publicity tours), the very thought of it clearly annoys Kershner, who bristles with journalists who suggest it.  For his part, Kershner comes across well, imbuing the material with depth and emotion and working hard with his cast and crew to make things are good as they possibly can be.  Working in the moment, having already planned thoroughly, he liked to leave enough room for conversations and discussions with his actors (the Carbon freezing sequence, as mentioned above, shows this brilliantly) that clearly benefit the film.

The now iconic group shot - Hamill, George Lucas, Carrie Fisher and
Harrison Ford.  The lady shown standing behind and between Fisher
and Ford is Robert Shaw's daughter, who worked on the crew.

Of the actors, Mark Hamill comes across very well, though he does comment he and Carrie Fisher clashed a few times.  In fact, Fisher also clashes with Kershner and Harrison Ford (in the miked-up section) and Billy Dee Williams later tries to be diplomatic, in saying that her mind perhaps wasn’t on the job all the time.  In fact, with the production keen to film her scenes and release her, it appears her well-documented foray into addiction was already taking hold.  Ford, for his part, comes across as occasionally stroppy but always keen to do a good job.

Stuart Freeborn (make-up effects supervisor, on left)
 talks about the Yoda head with Frank Oz and Jim Henson

As production released cast members to move into the Dagobah set and the schedule goes ever further over, you can almost hear the rankling in Lucas’ comments as the pressure being put on him - as the financier - must have been incredible.  That’s not helped by the whole Yoda situation and it’s worth noting that whilst the world readily accepted the puppet as a living, breathing character, at the time it was an enormous risk.  We watch “Empire” now, we see Yoda everywhere and we take him as read but back in 1978/79, nobody had tried anything like it before.  I was surprised to read that Frank Oz only worked on the film for 12 days (he was lent out by Jim Henson’s company as they were gearing up for “The Dark Crystal”) and completely agree with Kershner’s observation that the Dagobah sequences are made by the sincerity of Mark Hamill’s acting.

Another thing I discovered is something I’ve long wondered, that the second and third films can’t have been as much fun for Hamill since Luke was often split up from the other characters.  He’s quoted as saying, “It was almost like two separate films were being made.  I got nostalgic for the grand old days on the Death Star, when Harrison, Carrie, Chewie and I were all together in the trash compactor.”  Hamill ended up working on the film for 103 days.

Effects Supervisor Richard Edlund, George Lucas and
modelshop supervisor Steve Gawley with the Medical Frigate model.

Production complete, the action moves back to California.  ILM was put together again in San Anselmo, moving away from LA and the original building and leaving John Dykstra and several colleagues there.  In between designing shots (far more than the original film) and creating new worlds and ships and creatures, the team also had to design and build new equipment and the schedule very quickly becomes constrictive.  Everyone keeps their sense of humour though - especially effects supervisor Ken Ralston - and by the end of the period, they’re even changing original shots (the Wampa monster) because they don’t want anything “crappy” popping up in ‘their film’.

(from left) Dennis Muren (effect Supervisor), Phil Tippett and Jon Berg
with the Tauntaun puppet

Rinzler, as with every other aspect of the production, is exhaustive in his approach to the ILM work, with shots often mapped out by the frame so that they fit into the already fine-edited final cut of the film (which Lucas would add a few shots to, between the initial limited-run 70mm release and the wide 35mm one).  Phil Tippett and Jon Berg quite rightly get a lot of attention for their stop-motion work with the AT-AT’s (another risky visual image) and Tauntauns, but it’s clear to see that ILM was a more harmonious place with everyone being given a chance to shine (Lucas later says he was very pleased with the work they did).  Hoth seems to have been the hardest work in terms of technical difficulties (not only colour matching snow and hiding matte lines, but also trying to comp stop-motion creatures into it), with a lot of effort put into them - Bruce Nicholson, head of the optical department, shrugs away his successes by saying he used a “Norway filter”.

from left - Irvin Kershner, Gary Kurtz, George Lucas, Lawrence Kasdan - on the Hoth set

Towards the end of post-production, Alan Ladd jr left Twentieth Century Fox, which didn’t help Lucas with the studio or the banks since Ladd was their key supporter.  Lawrence Kasdan was also caught out, since Fox was going to make his noir-thriller “Body Heat” and once Ladd left, the film was put into turnaround.  Ladd set the film up at his new Ladd Company and Lucas was sponsor on the film, with the proviso that if it went over budget, the funds should come from his fee.  As Kasdan says, “this was a generous, supportive thing to do”.

Rinzler examines contemporary interviews and one, from Time magazine in 1978, seems particularly pertinent.  When asked about his future directing ambitions, Lucas says “I will go back and direct another [“Star Wars”] film, but it will be toward the end of the cycle, about 20 years from now”.  The Phantom Menace was released in 1999.

Rinzler also details how perceptive Lucas was with future technology and how it would assist the film-making process, especially with digital images.  Sprocket Systems (later renamed Skywalker Sound) had a Computer Research and Development Division set up within it, headed by Ed Catmull, to develop computer aided visual and sounding editing equipment.  They also developed the Pixar system, which would later become the Pixar Division and be sold off to Steve Jobs.

The post-production part ends with a section on the matte paintings which Harrison Ellenshaw, Ralph McQuarrie and Michael Pangrazio created.  Showing them in progress and often against the final frames, these are gloriously reproduced and a real sight to behold.

Harrison Ellenshaw's matte painting of Slave 1 on the Cloud City landing pad.  The only live action in the shot was Boba Fett and the guards carrying the carbonite block.

As with Jedi, the final part of the book deals with the release and reception of the film, as Lucas’ risky venture proves a hit with the paying public (he made his money back in three months), if not all of the critics (though some would change their tune over the years) though it did win several awards in 1980 (including a special Academy Award for the visual effects).  Reading some of the reviews back - again with the benefit of hindsight, knowing that this sequel is generally considered the best film of the trilogy (I prefer “Star Wars”, as it happens) - it’s interesting to see how people’s perceptions changed.

Candid, thorough and superbly researched, this is painstakingly extensive and never less than readable and filled with beautifully reproduced photographs.  I thought the Jedi book would be the benchmark but I think Rinzler has excelled himself here.

I’m a huge fan of the original trilogy and Making Of Books and this is pretty much perfect, to the extent that I dragged out the last few pages because I didn’t want it to end.  Very highly recommended.

World Book Day

World Book Day is a charity event held annually in the United Kingdom and Ireland on the first Thursday in March, to promote reading.  To that end, every child in full-time education in the UK is given a voucher to be spent on books and schools often have costume days.  They have this year - Dude has gone in as Michaelangelo, from the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and he's taken his latest Snoopy book to read.

People across the country are celebrating and I think it's a terrific idea - what's not to love about promoting the simple, but incredibly rewarding, experience of reading?

On Twitter, people are posting #shelfies and, since I'm all for pictures on the blog, here are two of mine, taken this morning.

My Three Investigators and others shelf.  The shelf with Morph on holds all the books I collected originally, the shelf below it holds my "second" collection - hardbacks, format A's and the format B duplicates.  Behind them is my collection of cheap, cheerful and occasionally sleazy 70s and 80s paperbacks.  The bottom shelf is very narrow, so holds a variety of items - some of my Far Side collection and VHS copies of some of the (ultra) low budget horror films I made in the early 90s.

My main horror/thriller bookcase.  The nice thing for me is, if you look at the middle shelf, you'll see a lot of books written by friends of mine, which I think is excellent.  The NEL paperback of "Carrie" is out because that's my next read.

As I've started collecting the Coronet paperbacks of Peanuts from the 70s and 80s, Dude has decided he wants to as well and is reading and enjoying them.  I'm pleased with the fact that he's an eager reader.

Taken last weekend, Dude is reading his latest Snoopy collection.  That's me on the right, sat in a B&B in Bridlington in 1988, reading my latest horror anthology purchase.

Go out, pick up a book and give it a read.

For more information, go to the World Book Day site here

Drive, a novella

I'm pleased to announce that my novella Drive is being published by Pendragon Press and launched at Edge-Lit 3, held at the Derby Quad, on Saturday 19 July 2014.

Chris Teague, of Pendragon Press, says that the novella is "a departure from Mark's horror writing, though still quite terrifying: a fast-paced thriller set in the darkness of Gaffney's streets."

I wrote the first draft in 2008 (before I knew of the James Sallis novella or, indeed, the film, so the title might change).  It was inspired as I drove down the M1 at 3am on my way to Luton airport and realised I was the only person on the road.  Chris picked it up in 2009 and I've revised it a couple of times since then.

It tells the story of David - who finds himself in Gaffney on a course - and a woman called Nat - a friend of a friend - he's giving a lift home to.  All is well until they have a run in with three thugs, who are cruising the town in a stolen Audi and looking for trouble.  Before the night is over, someone is going to get hurt.


This brief extract shows the first time that David & Nat encounter the Audi

There were still a few pedestrians in the city centre but hardly any traffic, other than taxis and so they didn’t have too many hold-ups.Apart from occasionally pointing out the dress sense of people they saw, they’d fallen into a comfortable silence, which David partly regretted - Nat was good company and nice to talk to.
     She directed him into Dryden Street and he drove to the end of it, stopping at the traffic lights.  A group of women were at the kerb and a couple of them looked towards the car and waved, as if they couldn’t seem to decide if he was waiting for them or about to go.
     He ushered them across and one of the women, wearing a denim skirt and jacket, her hair teased up into an approximation of a beehive, waved at him, smiling broadly.
     "Blimey,” said Nat, “now that’s loud music.”
     David looked in his rear view mirror and saw a red Audi coming towards them, in the next lane. 
    "He’s moving,” he said.  “Do you think he doesn’t know the road?”
  Nat twisted around in her seat.  “It’s a one-way street, so he might be going right, but he’s tanking it.”
     David looked at the crossing.  The women were about halfway across, apparently oblivious to both the flashing green man and the car heading towards them.  He checked the rear-view mirror.  The Audi wasn’t slowing down.  
     David looked at Nat, then at the women and honked his horn twice.
    Some of the women looked over, their annoyed expressions fading away as they saw the Audi.  The green man disappeared completely as the women at the back of the group pushed their friends forward.  The last woman on the road dived for the safety of the payment as the Audi slid by, brakes screeching and tyres smoking, before turning right and disappearing from sight.
     “Shit,” said David.
     “Should we check they’re alright?” asked Nat.
     Most of the women were now on their feet.  A couple were crying but none of them seemed injured, apart from ripped tights and a couple of bloody knees.

Drive is a 27,000 word novella.

For more information, go to the Pendragon Press website or keep checking back here for more details as and when I get them.

The Mystery Of The Whispering Mummy, by Robert Arthur

Since 2014 marks the fiftieth anniversary of The Three Investigators being published, I thought it’d be enjoyable to re-read and compile my Top 10 (which might be subject to change in years to come, of course).  I previously read all 30 of the original series from 2008 to 2010 (a reading and reviewing odyssey that I blogged here), but this time I will concentrate on my favourite books and try to whittle the best ten from that.

So here we go.

Collins Hardback First Edition (printed between 1968 and 1971), cover art by Roger Hall

"How can a 3,000 year old mummy whisper?" 

Pete, Bob and Jupiter couldn't believe it! But the Professor swore he’d heard the mummy's curse - 

"Woe to all who disturb my sleep..." 

Then a series of 'accidents', and the theft of the mummy case change the investigators' minds!

Professor Yarborough is almost crushed
by a statue of Anbus (artwork by Roger Hall)

The boys receive two letters, which Bob attempts his powers of deductions on and Jupe manages to play a trick on Pete regarding their contents.  The first is from Alfred Hitchcock and concerns his friend Professor Yarborough, an Egyptologist who has a small museum at his canyon-side house.  Currently researching the history of the mummy Ra-Orkon, he is troubled by the fact that it whispers in a strange language when he is in the room with it alone.  The second letter is from Mrs Banfry, who wants them to help find her missing Abyssinian cat, Sphinx.  Not wanting to get involved with a talking mummy, Pete goes to see Mrs Banfry whilst Jupe & Bob go to Professor Yarborough’s house but the boys are soon back together for a case where nothing is quite what it seems to be.

This has long been one of my favourite books and I can remember reading it over the course of an afternoon back in the late 70s and being thrilled by it.  I’m pleased to say that it still holds up - the characters are well drawn, the mystery has a good foundation and there’s plenty of history to absorb and add verisimilitude to the story.

Well told and structured, this is superbly written and drops clues for further in the timeline (“Two and two don’t always make four,” Jupe said, his manner mysterious. “And fifteen and fifteen don’t always make thirty” after Worthington mentions that it opens on the fifteenth day of their thirty days use of the Rolls Royce) though it does niggle me there’s a chapter not told from an Investigator-led POV (which probably troubled me more as an adult than it did as a kid).  That aside, this is a great book with a good sense of location and atmosphere and further proof - should it be needed - that it’s a shame Robert Arthur didn’t write or plot more of the adventures.

Great fun and highly recommended.

Format a paperback, printed between 1971 and 1980 (it never appeared in Format b),
cover art by Peter Archer

The internal illustrations for the UK edition were drawn by Roger Hall.

Thanks to Ian Regan for the artwork (you can see more at his excellent Cover Art database here)

More visits to "The Mill"

As a writer, it's always nice when readers connect to a piece of your work - especially when it's enough for them to either leave a review or drop you a line.  There's also a real thrill when something that is quite a way in the past for you seems to cycle itself back to the surface, gaining new attention, reviews and fans along the way.

When I wrote "The Mill", I had no real expectations of its life beyond it appearing in "We Fade To Grey", the Pendragon Press anthology edited by Gary McMahon that it was written for.  To say it exceeded those expectations is an understatement - it was well received and well reviewed and then Tim C. Taylor at Greyhart Press picked it up to publish in a single volume.  I thought it might sell a handful of copies and fade away quietly but to my great surprise, that didn't happen either - it picked up more good reviews and some of the best comments I've ever received.

Well, it's cycled around again.  Yesterday, my friend James Everington pointed me to a Goodreads group that has highlighted the novelette as one of their reading recommendations and commendations for 2014.  Considering the company I'm keeping, I can only say I'm honoured to be included.

You can find the list here.

"The Mill" has also led me to being interviewed online again, this time by izombiheartzoey at the Interrogating Ideology With a Chainsaw website.  Some great questions, some hopefully half decent answers and hey, it's always nice to get interviewed.

The interview can be found at this link.

Following these two incidents, I had a look at the Amazon page and discovered that the book is no. 59 in the Amazon Bestsellers chart - for Books > Fiction > Horror > Short Stories.  For a novelette that was published in September 2011, that's not bad is it (I know, I'm fairly easily impressed)?

And just in case this has piqued your interest, here's the blurb (and purchase details)

Michael struggles to come to terms with the death of his wife. He has visions of her calling to him, inviting him to the beyond.

At the Bereaved Partners’ Group, he learns that he is not the only one left behind who can hear the departed beckon them… to the Mill.

Available now

Paperback from amazon.com ($4.99) | amazon.co.uk (£3.75)

eBook (list price 99c / 77p) from amazon.com | amazon.co.uk | Barnes&Noble 

| iTunes US UK  CA |  Smashwords | diesel | Kobo

Star Wars: A New Hope (the Marvel adaption)

One of my earliest encounters with comics (aside from the weekly adventures of Spider Man) was the Marvel comics adaptation of “Star Wars”, which appeared in the 1978 annual.  It sticks in my mind because, as a big fan of the film, my parents got me it to read in the car as we drove down to a family holiday in Widmouth Bay.  In addition to behind-the-scenes stuff and interviews with the actors, it also ran an abridged version (none of the trash compactor makes it in, for instance) of the comic.

Having watched the original trilogy films over the Christmas period with Dude, I decided a re-read (after several years away) would be in order.  Rather than the annual (I didn't want to miss out sections), I went for the Boxtree version, collected from the weekly comics, which was written by Roy Thomas and drawn by Howard Chaykin and Steve Leialoha.

Clearly sourced from an earlier screenplay (Luke is part of Blue Squadron, for instance and Jabba The Hutt resembles something that stood at the bar in the cantina), this follows the film but also includes scenes that were never shown, such as Luke and his friends at Tosche Station, Luke seeing the battle at the beginning and pretty much all of Biggs’ part.

As a light read (the editing works well, though some of the “meanwhile…” boxes do get monotonous), it’s generally good fun.  The Chaykin artwork is more visceral and immediate (he’s not very good at drawing spaceships) but the Leialoha section, which starts at the encounter with the Tusken Raiders, is more detailed and defined (and, to my eye, better).  The book also has several pages of production art from the film.

Princess Leia gets zapped, as the droids make their escape...

Han clearly shot first...

Meeting Jabba

Still one of the best pieces of dialogue interplay in the film and reproduced well on the page

ZZRAKK - though this doesn't explain how Vader could lift the cloak with his lightsaber

Alderaan gets it in the neck

With some peculiar dialogue choices - I can’t imagine Han Solo saying “hold on tight kiddies” as the Millennium Falcon blasts away from the Death Star - and some pruning - only the X-Wings make the run on the Death Star - this is faithful enough and conveys the immediacy and action of the film.  Speaking as someone who doesn’t tend to read graphic novels, but loves “Star Wars”, I really enjoyed it and would highly recommend it.

Ever the completist, I also found and read the Boxtree editions of "Empire" and "Jedi" but didn't enjoy either of them as much as this (nor was the artwork as good).

Sometimes, you know, you have to pay attention or you miss so much...

When I wrote my 400th blog post, amongst my list of achievements I casually mentioned that I'd "done a signing at Forbidden Planet".

I had (and blogged about it here) because, as a contributor to the terrific "Hauntings" anthology (edited by Ian Whates and published by NewCon Press), we were part of the store's "Small Press Expo Day", as co-ordinated by Danie Ware (with poster design by Sarah Anne Langton).  I'll be perfectly honest, I was thrilled about the whole thing and am still chuffed to bits that I was able to participate.

I grew up in a small town some 60 miles north of London and childhood trips to the capital were infrequent.  If we did go, it was generally for a specific purpose (school trips, the zoo and on a tour in 1980 the bus driver took us past the Iranian embassy, which I thought was very exciting) and my travelling companions never listened to my wish to go to Forbidden Planet.  Even though I didn't visit the store until the mid-80s (when I went to London with friends), I knew all about it and I really, really wanted to spend hours wandering the (I imagined) miles of shelves containing all the books, magazines, models and toys that I was so eager to see.

So it was cool that I was there, it was even cooler that I was there signing, but mostly it was simply amazing to be surrounded by fellow creatives in this hub of genre appreciation in the city (we were in Shaftesbury Avenue, the current location, though the store was in High Holborn previously, which I'd first visited).

Downstairs at Forbidden Planet, with fellow NSFWG members Donna Bond (left, pointing out books to me) and Andy West (my immediate left, who's looking elsewhere)

Danie Ware, who is a great writer as well as a Forbidden Planet stalwart, tweeted some old 'coming attractions' posters on Twitter yesterday and, once again, I was astounded by the situation I'd found myself in.

Mark Hamill was apparently the 'surprise visitor' - how cool would that have been?

I'd signed at Forbidden Planet.  I was standing on the shoulders of giants (in a manner of speaking).  That Saturday afternoon in June 2012 had not only been a wonderful occasion in and of itself, but it was also another achievement for me and something my kid version - writing his stories and dreaming of the future - would never have dared to believe.

Romaniac Shorts: Fashionably Brief, a collection

I don't write romantic fiction (as my friend Sue Moorcroft says, if there's a love affair in my stories it's usually doomed - or worse...), but I do read it on occasion.  I've got to know some of the Romaniacs over the past year or so via social media (I was chuffed to be asked to contribute a Friday 13th guest blog on the horror genre, which you can find here) and I'm pleased to open the blog today for their newest, shiniest venture (information courtesy of Lucie Wheeler)...

* * * * *

There has been much excitement at Romaniac HQ over the past few months and we're very pleased to finally announce to the world why we've been acting like giggly schoolgirls with a secret.

Next Thursday, 13th February 2014, our blog will be 2 years old, and we have a very special celebration planned.

Romaniac Press has gone into production, and we are releasing our first anthology:

Romaniac Shorts

It’s a diverse collection of short stories and flash fiction, ranging from romance, to crime, to fantasy, and we are thrilled to see one of our early ideas finally come to fruition.

Romaniac Shorts will be available as an eBook, through Amazon.

All profits from the sale of Romaniac Shorts will be divided between Dyslexia Action, and the Romantic Novelists’ Association.

We consider ourselves extremely fortunate to have received guidance, advice, and friendship from the writing world, and we always aim to give something back. We hope this goes a little way to saying thank you.

Please enjoy our briefs...

For more information, go to the Romaniacs blog here

And as a thank you to Mark for having us on his blog, I have agreed to ‘leak’ three titles to give you a taster of what you can expect… so here are three titles from the anthology – but I won’t tell you whose stories they are. You’ll have to wait and find out!

*Flights of Fancy*

*100 Ways to Love*

*Man on a Mission*

We hope you are as excited as we are. Not long now …

Lucie x

Throwback Thursday - February 1983

In the early 80s I was part of the Rothwell Parish Church Youth club and an enthusiastic member of the Quiz Team (films were my speciality).  In early 1983, we travelled to the YMCA centre in Northampton and competed with loads of other teams from the Midlands and East Anglia in a grand Quiz Championship.

We got to the final.  I was excited.  Our opponents were generally much older than us (we ranged from 13 - that'd be me - up to about 15) and I thought we'd had it.  A sport round, we did okay but didn't win.  A books round, we did better and won.  The rounds were going to them, to us, we were fairly evenly matched.

The last round was films.  If this was a movie of my life, there'd be a montage here but the question-master cleared his throat, picked up his sheaf of questions and looked at us.  We looked back at him.  My team-mates looked at me.  I tried not to look worried.

There were ten questions in the round, as I recall.  I don't remember what seven of them were about but the last three were based on "E.T."  Out of everyone in the room, I was the only person who'd seen it.

We won the cup and I was absolutely thrilled.

Me, my much loved ZX81, a TV you had to tune to the stations and the cup.  Those were the days...

If you look closely, you can see that I've programmed the ZX81 to display "Mark wins the cup!"

The Secret Of The Crooked Cat, by William Arden

Since 2014 marks the fiftieth anniversary of The Three Investigators being published, I thought it’d be enjoyable to re-read and compile my Top 10 (which might be subject to change in years to come, of course).  I previously read all 30 of the original series from 2008 to 2010 (a reading and reviewing odyssey that I blogged here), but this time I will concentrate on my favourite books and try to whittle the best ten from that.

So here we go.

Collins Hardback First edition (printed between 1971 and 1973 ), cover art by Roger Hall

A weird mystery intrigues The Three Investigators when Carson's Carnival comes to town, for they soon find that someone is out to destroy the funfair and its owner.  With a bizarre toy cat as their only clue to the enemy, the boys set out on a deadly manhunt...

interior artwork by Roger Hall shows Andy,
from the carnival, being shown
around Headquarters

Titus Jones gets the boys to paint up some wash tubs to look like ‘lion chairs’, which they hand deliver to ‘Carson’s Colossal Carnival!’ that's been set up at the beach next to the abandoned amusement park.  Almost as soon as they get there, a man tries to steal a bizarre looking stuffed toy (the crooked cat of the title) and the boys chase him but he disappears, with the only apparent means of escape a sheer wooden fence.  Soon after Pete wins the cat for himself, he finds himself trying to calm a lion that has been released from its pen.  As the boys delve deeper it soon transpires that the carnival is in trouble and someone is out to destroy it and its owner.  With a series of accidents of escalating seriousness building up and superstitious carnival folk believing that “everything comes in threes”, it’s up to the boys to figure out what’s going on, with the crooked cat as their only clue.

This is another terrific entry, combining a deceptively simple plot with some really good set pieces, logical detection and plenty of intrigue along the way.  After setting things up in the first chapter, the story takes off and whips along, featuring bad luck, a reverse-disguise, carny-life, a human fly, a bank robbery and remnants of the past along the way.  There’s great use of the abandoned amusement park and it’s desolation and spookiness is remarkably well conveyed (especially during a tense and suspenseful moonlit pursuit).  The book also has an element of Robert Arthur style pathos to it, about the waning carnival life and people wanting someting for nothing, which is a nice touch.

This also marks the introduction of the tracking devices (put to good use) and features several characters saying “The Jones Salvage Yard has everything!”, which I thought was cool.  If the ending is perhaps a little simplistic (though it does have the villain say “I’d have got away except for those stupid kids!” - this was published in 1970, Scooby Doo started in 1969), it still works and doesn’t detract from what is otherwise a gripping read and one I highly recommend.

The Armada editions show completely different aspects of the story (art by Peter Archer)
format A (left) printed between 1973 and 1980, format B (right) printed between 1982 and 1983

The internal illustrations for the UK edition were drawn by Roger Hall.

Thanks to Ian Regan for the artwork (you can see more at his excellent Cover Art database here)