Month: November 2015

Alan Moore gives some helpful advice to writers…

In my opinion, both Watchmen and V for Vendetta are outstanding pieces of work, so any advice this chap gives is well worth listening to.

The article from Digital Spy makes a huge deal of his advice to self-publish, but for me, the standout piece of advice was to keep writing: rework until you are completely happy with what you’ve done, and when you get down to it, you’re the only person who will know for sure when it’s right.

But on the topic of the publishing industry, he had this to say:

As far as publishing goes, my first tip is publishing today is a complete mess. I know brilliant authors who cannot get published… Most of the book publishers don’t want to take a chance on publishing fiction when they can publish an autobiography of The Stig or something like that… The best way these days is publish yourself, it’s become easier and easier.

I certainly agree that publishing is easy; the problem is selling what you’ve published.

Watch the video, and if you’re in one of those ‘what the hell’s it all for’ kind of a rut then watch it again.

Book review: To Thee is this World Given by Khel Milam

Every so often, an afternoon spent trawling aimlessly around the internet will turn up a rare gem. Last week’s discovery was a self-published  novella entitled To Thee is this World Given: a slow burner that spends a few days with a handful of people surviving the aftermath of a zombie apocalypse.

Yeah, I know, the internet is creaking under the weight of apocalyptica, but this one is a bit different. It’s very much character-driven, along the lines of Station Eleven which happens to be one of my favourite books. You won’t see zombies eating the lungs of their screaming victims (and yet they’re still screaming), or chiselled sweat-laden heroes dispatching the walking dead with pickaxes. If that’s your bag then this book may not be for you.

dfw-km-ttitwg-cover-small-e1431038739393But if you’re looking for a measured, well-written (and I have to say it’s very rare that you see such care and attention devoted to a self-published novel), philosophical perspective on the end of the world, then this is probably it. It’s a great study of people and how they come to justify what they need to do to survive. You soon come to realise that the zombies are not really the problem (they’re slow, not particularly bright, and so pretty easy to avoid); the real problem is the other survivors, and the limits you set yourself in order to be one of them. Oh, and infected cuts: they can kill you too.

The writing style is crisp and lyrical (I can’t be a hundred per cent sure, but I don’t think I saw a single dialogue tag); the author makes great use of the environment to build suspense. The pace is slow, but still gripping. Some of the phrasing became repetitive at times; you can get away with this in a longer piece, but something like that does stand out in a novella. Still, the book as a whole was a highly enjoyable, wonderfully smooth read.

Seven out of ten.