paulcornell2

To Be Continued Elsewhere

Sun, 13 Dec 2009 15:49:37 GMT

My apologies for any hassle this causes, but I'm afraid that, from today's first post in this year's 12 Blogs of Christmas onwards, I'll be blogging only at http://www.paulcornell.com/

Those of you who prefer to follow on LiveJournal can still subscribe to the LJ feed of the blog, and I'm happy to provide any assistance required (as soon as someone tells me how that works). I've decided to do this to some degree because of technical issues, and to some degree because I'd like to put all my blogging in one place. I was going to wait until next year, but the sheer screaming bafflement of translating Word into LJ finished me off a bit early.

EDIT: here's that feed! http://paulcornellblog.livejournal.com/

I hope you'll follow me over there today, for a new Doctor Who short story entitled 'The Last Doctor'. Thanks for your time, and for being such a kind audience. Cheers.

All Sorts of Stuff

Mon, 07 Dec 2009 19:05:48 GMT

I'm busy gearing up for the 12 Blogs of Christmas, which this year will begin on December 13th, but it occurs to me that there's quite a bit of stuff to get through before that, so...

First up, you can find lovely previews of the first few pages of both Black Widow: Deadly Origin#2 and Dark X-Men #2, which are out this Wednesday/Thursday, here. There is much gorgeous art on display.

Secondly, if you'd like to have a go at winning a set of Wild Cards novels, this being George R.R. Martin's shared world superhero series to which I've recently pledged my services, the place to go is here.

Thirdly, the first part of Alex Fitch's panel interview with me, Bryan Talbot, Daniel Merlin Goodbrey and Paul Duffield, done as part of the Sci-Fi London event, is now available as a podcast here.

Fourthly, a short interview I did (over months, question by question, the poor interviewer!) on the subject of how I became a writer is now online here.

And finally, I've written the foreword to a Best Of from the Doctor Who fanzine Shooty Dog Thing, which is available for a tenner or so here.

I had a lovely time last Saturday popping out to a signing in Stevenage, where the folk who hang out at and run Limited Edition Comics proved to be warm, friendly and fun: it really did seem like a place that was just as much home to a gang of friends as it was a business. That same night I headed to London, to join with many of my fellow UK comics professionals for an evening down the pub, which was as happy as we've made many a convention bar. Here, looking like they rehearsed their poses, they are:

I'm sure you can spot your favourites!

Anyhow, still room for a couple of blogs before the 12 begin, I'm sure, so until next time, Cheerio!

New Podcast Interview

Tue, 01 Dec 2009 18:45:04 GMT

Just did a rather fun interview with the Comic Book Outsiders. Though we mostly talk about SF. You can find it either on ITunes, or here. Cheerio!

Signing in Stevenage

Sun, 29 Nov 2009 18:36:43 GMT

Just a quick note to say that from 1pm next Saturday, December 5th, I'll be signing comics (and anything else you want to bring along, within reason) at Limited Edition Comix in Stevenage, Herts. The website for the shop is www.ltd-edition-comix.com/index.asp .

I hope to see some of you then! Cheerio!

Thought Bubble Remembered

Thu, 26 Nov 2009 11:57:29 GMT

I must say, I had a thoroughly wonderful time at Thought Bubble in Leeds last weekend. It's a serious comics festival, with workshops and exhibitions, that includes, on the Saturday, a dealers' room -based comic convention, with a curtained-off panel area in one corner of a big hall full of dealers. I did some serious socialising in the hotel bar on the Friday night, meeting the great artist Ben Templesmith for the first time, hanging out with Emma Vieceli, Adi Granov, Kieron Gillen and Jamie McKelvie and ending up, as is becoming almost usual now, fixing the world in the early hours with Andy Diggle. Add to that my old mates from the Millarworld message boards, many of whom were working on the show, and I felt thoroughly warmed by good company. A chill set in, unfortunately, when I returned to the hotel room and couldn't sleep, and ended up simply staying up all night, worrying about all the stuff which doesn't seem nearly so terrible in the day. It was work related, and has now largely evaporated, but it was a tough old night.

On the Saturday, I plonked myself at my table, under the sign with my name on it, and proceeded to meet the public, sign things, and give away free comics all day, which, it turned out, I really enjoyed. It helped that I was sitting next to the Marvel artist Barry Kitson -

Who shares, according to the Millarworld guys, the title of 'nicest man in comics' with Mike Carey. To our surprise, it turned out we spent our childhoods within a few miles of each other: I recognised the accent. I did one panel, John Mosby of Impact magazine interviewing me, Adi, Diggle and Jock about the interface between comics and film and television, which I thought went very well, and seemed to please the audience.

One of the loveliest things about the event was how cosplay has arrived at comic conventions. Girls in anime costumes everywhere, a majorly competitive contest between them, and that now, finally, starting to extend into the superhero worlds too -

Longtime readers will recognise the Millarworld Thor's hammer. I've really enjoyed the influx of enthusiastic young women into both comics and Doctor Who fandom: their fannish glee just makes everything better. When Rose, the young craftswoman who was put in charge of looking after us starts talking about how she's been a comics fan for six weeks, and how 'Tony (Stark) and Steve (Rogers) secretly love each other', you know something new is starting to happen.

Here's a quick wander around the hall and the cosplay -

Which gives a feeling for the day, I think. In the evening, the guests were treated to a fabulous Muslim restaurant meal, and the lack of alcohol at the table was frankly very welcome. Then we went on to the top floor of a casino/nightclub, where the afterparty was being held. By this point, I'd been awake for a hallucinogenic length of time, and thought DJ sets from the great Al Ewing, Gillen and McKelvie, and a playlist from Penny Broadhurst were hugely attractive, I just stuck my head into the Geek Syndicate live podcast, then stumbled off home.

I had breakfast the next morning with Marvel editor Steve Wacker, who I'd never really met before. He turned out to be a thoroughly nice chap, with that attractive New York badda bing that Marvel seems to coach its folk in, and loads of sincerity backing it up. He'd been looking at portfolios and meeting the public and creators for almost as long as I'd been awake, but, like me, seemed buoyed up by how well looked-after we'd been. It's a real sign of a good attitude when there's always a steward popping by to ask if the poor dehydrated creators want some more water. Judging by the numbers through the door, the event seems to have been a great success with the public also. Organisers Lisa Wood, Clark Burscough and Michael Bennett (and my old mates Sabrina and Mark Peyton) deserve congratulations on a superb event. Alongside Birmingham, it feels like the new generation of British comic conventions is thriving. Now, if only Thought Bubble could organise a new UK comics awards!

It's good to have peers, and in British comics I really feel welcomed by the friends I have. A drunken pile of them in a hotel bar is always a welcome sight. Cheerio!

Black Widow Sells Out!

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 08:07:03 GMT

I'm pleased to announce that Black Widow: Deadly Origin #1 has sold out its print run, and will thus return for a second printing, under a new cover. You can hear all about it, read some reviews, and see that new cover here:

www.hypergeek.ca/2009/11/black-widow-deadly-origin-1-sells-out-returns-with-new-printing.html

This doesn't mean that it's completely vanished from your local comic shop, just that the owner of that shop wants to keep all the copies they have, isn't sending any back to Marvel, and would probably like some of the new printing to sell too. I'm pleased as punch. Cheerio!

Two Covers

Tue, 17 Nov 2009 18:41:37 GMT

Hmm, is that a member of MI-13 I see front and centre on the cover of the new Official Handbook Of The Marvel Universe?

And Adi Granov continues to impress with the cover to Black Widow: Deadly Origin #4...

And I thought you'd like to see them both! Cheerio!

Thought Bubble

Sun, 15 Nov 2009 14:49:21 GMT

Next weekend I'm going to be popping along to the Thought Bubble event in Leeds, a comics festival that includes a one day convention on the Saturday. You can find all the details here. I'm planning to do something a bit different, in that I've asked for a table, and will be sitting there, signing things, talking to people, selling books and giving away free comics basically all day, apart from when I'm on a panel and the occasional break for tea and shopping. I thought I'd try this as an experiment, because I like how Peter David does it at the New York Comic Con, and it might be fun. Then again, I might loathe it, but if you're there, do come over and see how it's going.

It is, of course, Doctor Who tonight! I love that feeling on anticipation, online and in my own fanboy self. Some friends are getting together to see 'The Keys of Marinus' and 'The Waters of Mars' back to back, and it's pleasing to hear of various other mass viewings. I'm sure Russell and Phil are going to deliver something special, once again.

And finally, there's an excellent young Oxfordshire band I'd like to bring to your attention. They're called Quadrophobe. They play punchy, highly danceable ska-influenced pop, and include a trumpeter in their ranks. Do check out their website here, where you can hear one of their self-penned numbers. I think, given a record company, and/or a horde of adoring young girls, they might go a long way.

I hope to see a few of you in Leeds. Until then, Cheerio!

Let's try that again...

Sun, 08 Nov 2009 06:39:51 GMT

The poll indicates you lot think that next year's Hugo Short Form Drama nominations will be:Doctor Who; Dollhouse; Lost; True Blood and Fringe. My own bet, now it becomes clear that The Prisoner will probably be eligible for Long Form, is: Doctor Who; Dollhouse; L0st; Flash Forwardand Stargate Universe. It was hard to choose between True Blood and Flash Forward. Both deserve it, but the latter has Rob Sawyer speaking for it. So let's see who's got it right when the nominations are revealed. When I won't be able to find this post. Cheerio!

Telefantasy Hugo Game, Dark X-Men Preview

Sat, 07 Nov 2009 08:34:29 GMT

For those of you not reading on Blogger, go have a look at the poll on the right of the blog over there. I'll wait. Ah, there you are again, that didn't take long. The wisdom of crowds has spoken, and it says that the five Hugo nominees for the Short Form Drama category next year will be episodes from:

Doctor Who.

Dollhouse.

Lost.

True Blood.

Fringe.

Now, of course the poll doesn't allow for multiple episodes from the same show, Torchwood: Children of Earth will be in the Long Form category, and there's still no sign of Caprica, which has to appear before the end of the year to qualify. And, ahem, I forgot The Prisoner, which may well get a nomination. So here are my own bets, and we'll meet here again when the nominations are decided, and see who made the best guesses, and I hope you lot don't kick my arse. I think the five nominees will be:

Doctor Who: Russell's end of season two-parter.

Dollhouse: probably 'Epitaph One', which would be kind of a shame, in that it's unrepresentative.

Lost: I'd like it to 'The Variable', because it was awesome.

Stargate Universe: though picking a particular episode will be tough.

The Prisoner: who knows?

Much as I'd love to see True Blood and Flash Forward in there. Fringe, in the last couple of weeks, seems to have suffered a blow to the head, and is staggering about, suddenly aware that it's on a tightrope and lack of format equals no safety net, while SU displays continuing excellence. At times I think it kind of... does Galactica better than Galactica did. Yes, I know, I was shocked to feel that way too. Anyway, the game is afoot! Individual bets on five shows and particular episodes in the comments are always welcome.

Meanwhile, next Wednesday/Thursday depending on which side of the pond your comic shop is, the first issue of Dark X-Men is out, which reunites me with Leonard Kirk and Nick Lowe, the old team from Captain Britain and MI-13. You can find the first few pages, and a similar preview of my mate Kieron Gillen's excellent S.W.O.R.D. series here.

And I hope that while you're in said comic shop, you may well pick up my other mate Chris Roberson's Cinderella: From Fabletown With Love, in which Chris continues to show why he will one day be the Mayor of all media.

And it seems that With Great Power, the superhero prose anthology from Pocket Books, edited by Lou Anders, in which I have a story, will be out in the States on July 20th. Amazon has it listed here.

Until next time, Cheerio!

It's Black Widow Day!

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 08:29:03 GMT

The first issue of Black Widow: Deadly Origin, by me and artists Tom Raney and John Paul Leon, is in your comic shops today if you're in the US, Thursday in the UK. I did a fun phone interview about it a couple of days back, the results of which can be found here.

We've got three covers, no less, by Adi Granov, Greg Land and Tom himself. I'm very proud of the series, and I hope you enjoy it. Cheerio!

When It Changed on Radio 4

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 09:10:50 GMT

It was good to hear Geoff Ryman, the editor of the anthology I have a story in, When It Changed, on BBC Radio 4's Material World, talking in their science strand about the book, the scientists and writers involved, and Mundane Science Fiction. You can listen (and I always have to say, yes, even if you are outside the UK) here. The presenter, Quentin Cooper, doesn't quite get what Mundane is to begin with, but Geoff quickly sets things up, and all in all it's a refreshing visit.

In other news, I did a short interview about the Black Widow with Nick Setchfield of SFX Magazine here.

The final issue of my Dark Reign: Young Avengers miniseries is in your comic shops now. I'm very proud of it, particularly that final page.

And we're off to see Fleetwood Mac in concert tonight. I don't do 'guilty pleasures', so that's just going to be a pleasure. I'm reading all sorts of Tweets and Facebook posts about the World Fantasy Convention in San Jose, mind you, and don't think I'm not jealous. Until next time, Cheerio.

Clockwork Storybook

Sun, 25 Oct 2009 16:44:44 GMT

It's with great pride and some surprise that I find I've been asked to join the Clockwork Storybook group of writers. These guys: Mark Finn; Daryl Gregory; Marjorie Liu; Chris Roberson; Matt Sturges; Bill Williams and Bill Willingham aspire to be a kind of modern-day version of the Inklings, the group of drunkards who bothered the landlord of the Eagle and Child in Oxford by never buying more than half a beer each, and incidentally talked about elves all the time. I suspect this lot would please your average barkeep rather more.

I share my good fortune with you lot only because, in the online world, this gang of friends manifests itself as a collective blog, to which I shall now be obliged to contribute from time to time. Yes, I know, I don't post here as often as I might! But nevertheless, I'm looking forward to pitching in. Said blog can be found here.

It feels good to be part of a club that would have me as a member! Cheerio!

Young Avengers Preview

Fri, 23 Oct 2009 05:26:21 GMT

The lovely first few pages of the final issue of Dark Reign: Young Avengers are here.

And I hope to see some of you at the Royal Greenwich Observatory tonight! Cheerio!

When It Changed and Black Widow Pages

Tue, 20 Oct 2009 13:17:38 GMT

I'm pleased to report that When It Changed, the new SF anthology edited by Geoff Ryman, with a story by me in it, is now available, either from all good bookshops, or from Comma Press themselves. You can find all the details here. This is the anthology for which Michael Moorcock was kind enough to allow me to use his character Jerry Cornelius. The idea of the book is that the writers involved, including Justina Robson, Ken MacLeod, Liz Williams and Adam Roberts, are paired up with scientists, who offered us research material, and then commented on our stories in a short article after each. My pet scientist was Dr. Rob Appleby, who works on the Large Hadron Collider at CERN. I'm very proud of the book, and I love how it once again sits SF and science down at the same romantic restaurant table and says hey, you kids are meant to be together. My story is called 'Global Collider Generation: An Idyll' and I hope you enjoy it. (Oh, and the biography of me on the Comma site is an old one: that 'new Doctor Who two-parter' from me they refer to was 'Human Nature'. Calm down.)

Moving to another medium, Tom Raney's art (but not the text) from the first eight pages, the pre-titles sequence, if you will, of the first issue of my Marvel mini-series Black Widow: Deadly Origin can be found here. I'm looking forward to people seeing more of this series, as there are some weird misconceptions about it out there. A hidden enemy is killing everyone our heroine, Natalia, has ever been close to: romantic partners; friends; people she was kind to in passing. It's not about 'everyone she's ever kissed'. Which the internet has twisted into something about STDs. Obviously. The first issue has guest appearances by Wolverine, the Winter Soldier and Joe Stalin, flashbacks courtesy of John Paul Leon. I think it's some of my best work, and it's pained me to hear my own rather flippant quotes be turned at an angle to portray it as something it isn't. I think that action scene shows one side of where we're coming from.

Until next time, Cheerio!

Flash Forward

Sun, 18 Oct 2009 20:37:25 GMT

I just caught up with that show, and wanted to add a quick addendum to my previous blog which covered the rest of current telefantasy in a little detail: FF is very promising. The 'ask every sensible question' approach to storytelling continues, which feels almost Arthur Clarke in its SFnalness. (Oh God, is that a word? If I just made that up, sorry, it's very ugly.) We have a black shouty boss, but he's one with tons of humane humour, and, in that his subordinates are happy to take the mickey out of him a little, he feels more like a real workplace boss than any other black shouty boss on TV. And we have the marvellous Demetri Noh, a very personable Korean lead. This shouldn't be a big deal, but the genuinely multi-ethnic ensemble (not just loads of white blokes and their one or two very nice black friends) only arrived in telefantasy with Lost, so it's still worth celebrating when a non-white character gets such screen time. The ecological niche Flash Forward is occupying is that of Heroes: if it's about one big understandable and interesting shift in the real world, then mainstream folk will love it too. And that big change can take you round the world, which was the real innovation of Heroes, that effects could now make audiences accept that they're in Munich or the Sudan. I'm genuinely interested in the storytelling challenge the show has set itself, and it's running at it like it's got plot to burn. Plus casting Jack Davenport, a man with previous in the matter of charismatically nicking other peoples' shows out from under them as a character who's going to do the romantic equivalent of exactly that is genius. (But there is a Coupling mashup video waiting to happen.) I do wonder why nobody in their flash forwards is yelling 'hey, this is then, this is that moment!' And I hope those who've read Rob Sawyer's book will refrain from spoiling the big reveal of what's doing this. But again, another bold new telefantasy show. Great stuff. Cheerio!

SFX Awards and Current Telefantasy

Sun, 18 Oct 2009 09:16:48 GMT

First up, ahem, if you're inclined to do so, please consider Captain Britain and MI-13 for Best Comic when casting your vote in the SFX Awards, which you can do here. It's pleasing to be included in the drop down menu options!

Second up, you can read me talking about the return of X-Man, Nate Grey, to the Marvel Universe in Dark X-Men here. I'm getting more and more psyched about that as the first issue approaches.

And thirdly, if you want to make an investment in the life of SF fandom, please may I direct your attention to this year's Trans Atlantic Fan Fund ballot, here. My friend Anne Murphy and her partner Brian (I put it like that because I haven't met him) are one of the voting options, and I'm one of the people who nominated them. This is a grand old SF institutions (running since 1953) of the sort I love so much. The idea is that people donate small sums of money to help an impoverished fan cross the ocean to attend a convention they otherwise would have trouble making it to. You cast your vote at the same time as proferring funds, and the winning candidate gets all the money. Anne and Brian have tough competition this year, from the wildly popular multi-Hugo-winning sweetheart of an artist Frank Wu, so I wanted to speak up for them, who do so much behind the scenes, Anne being so helpful and professional as one of Neil Gaiman's minders in Montreal that I initially assumed she worked for a publisher (not that I've forgottenyou, wonderfully useful publicist). And I wanted to support this fine tradition. I believe that may be the first time I've asked you lot for your money.

Okay, so, now to the meat and potatoes of this particular blog, a glance at the enormous slew of new telefantasy that's come our way lately, particularly the titles (for those reading on Blogger) listed in the poll to the right.

I find myself surprised to be so in love with Stargate: Universe. This is possibly because, perhaps unfairly, I've always regarded previous Stargate series as landfill telefantasy: only there for people to write slash fiction about; generic without a single thought towards the mainstream, where the sort of thing that can happen is dictated by what happened in previous SF TV shows and movies. Where every character is nice, and so drama becomes just a matter of will they survive the latest action sequence/emotional dilemma? Of course they will. And the one time they don't there'll be a fan campaign to get them back. This is how the core of genre TV has become survival of the nicest. But the creators of that show seem to have, nobly, decided that post Battlestar Galactica (which was the game changer for American telefantasy, however the naysayers may have been upset by its theist ending) everyone should be playing in a more competitive league now. So Universe has a bunch of characters who feel much more like real people, with some big negative traits on show (the post House/Lost realisation that actually nobody minds if the characters are gits), Robert Carlyle having been given loads to play, as a guy with lots of levels, hideous and sympathetic at the same time. That moment when the strings fade in to the soundtrack, and he gently turns to bereaved daughter and says 'you must understand, none of this... is my fault' and plays it entirely as the deflating voice of self-convinced moral cowardice... well, I actually made a little noise of amazement. Similarly, Eli, the show's geek, is introduced as our point of view character, charming and sympathetic. But put those geek references in a desert with the water running out, and the exact same guy becomes someone you want to kick. Best of all is Ronald Greer: the African American character who's not the extremely nice guy best friend of the hero who stands at the back being nice. And doesn't do much. Greer is objectionable, complicated, and probably the right soldier to have on your side in a fight. There's SGU's biggest achievement (though let's not forget Boomer in new Galactica got there first at the high end of this genre): at the heart of American telefantasy, they've finally given a black actor something interesting to do. Because your actual drama isn't about the survival of the nicest. It's about the survival of the most interesting. The three-part introductory episode's emphasis on the immediate, on the here and now details of survival, make it crack along, and one can only hope that stays in place. I worry about the news that there's going to be a resident alien on the show. And the so far charming carrying-on of all previous Stargatecontinuity (as a new viewer, I could have done without seeing the old Stargate team, but at least, and again, excellently, they were shown in realistic circumstances, and not with trumpets blaring celebrity cameo) may come back to bite them, if there's ever an episode about that stuff. But I have faith that this show may turn out to be Voyager done right. So far, it makes the whole previous Stargate universe, as it were, look better. I think there will be Hugo nominations.

As of course there will be for Doctor Who, as Russell ramps up his jam and cream and jelly and icing and a cherry on the top End Of Everything Grand Finale Squeeeeeeee! For which I cannot wait. And Torchwood: Children of Earth I wouldn't rule out winning the Long Form category. But that is not the category we're concerned with now. So, onwards.

The quality of Fringe baffles me. This is a show with an incredibly awkward format, so much so that the production has to keep violently wrenching about to make it work. By that I mean that our heroes work for one organisation, sort of, while actually being based at another, sort of, and their boss has not one single character to talk to when they're away from the FBI, and all sorts of other awkwardnesses. But it's like one of those aircraft that can only fly by altering its wing shape, moment to moment, but nevertheless does so extremely well. The writing staff are so clever that they seem to have set themselves this show as some sort of test or punishment, and every week pull it off magnificently without making it any easier for themselves next time. One thing in their favour is that the show thoroughly inhabits the ecological niche of The X-Files. You can point to it and say 'it's the X-Files by other means' and the audience will nod and say oh, right, I get it. Unlike that series, however, Fringe's back story episodes are often much more interesting than its monster of the week ones, which can get, a couple of times, frankly desperate. (Oddly, I thought the opening of season two felt very choppy in places after its spectacular start, but they got straight back on that horse the episode after.) They know their way, in the manner of Lost, with a telling, atmospheric room and interestingly peculiar performance. Their black character, is, unfortunately, while not quite the nice guy at the back, that other thing people of colour have always been on TV, the shouty boss. Said shouty boss is Lance Reddick, which makes it worse, because fans of The Wire will be aware that he can do bloody anything, and watching him in this show is like watching Yo Yo Ma dutifully keep time plucking a double bass. Genius creators may have realised that now, and we can only hope for some vaguely disturbing screentime with Nina. But one of the most interesting things aboutFringe, for me, is the sexual dynamic. Our heroine is the gun-toting action figure, determined and driven, rather glacial with her relationships, with a hard look and a biting tone of voice. Our hero is nurturing and emotional, a tad vulnerable, back at base looking after his father, and doing doubtless vital things with test tubes. This refreshing dynamic is so unusual that it often feels like Peter isn't being given enough to do. But actually I think maybe I'm just used to the guy doing all the dynamic stuff. Someone clearly thought Olivia needed to be surrounded by family and children and soppy stuff at one point last year, but she just looked awkward amongst it, and now she's sleeping with a gun under her pillow again. They've given her a (fine actor, give her something to play, quick) gammy leg now, but also super powers. And I thought her rescuingherself from the evil mastermind after the mid-season break last year was some kind of watershed. So yes, more of all that, please, and I continue to be fascinated by watching this show roll out a tightrope in front of itself and walk gracefully along with, with occasional waggles that make the audience gasp about the shark waiting not so far below.

Warehouse 13 is a favourite of mine, but you can tell SyFy, who tend to think like this, said that they wanted a Fringe of their own, and that the great Jane Espenson responded by going 'yes, absolutely, but with a certain homespun warmth, and kind of steampunk, oh, and the sort of character dialogue that gets called quirky and we don't hear enough of these days, and, yes, hmm, it doesn't feel very like Fringe at all now, does it? But it is good.' When it's bad, it's very bad (native American jacket episode, you know the one), because it does have a very solid format, and it's easy for a solid format to become just the things that always happen and nothing else. But the interesting stuff here is everything else: the back story; the charming characters; the almost vanished thought in telefantasy that we're not meant to be taking all this terribly seriously. They do seem to have vanished their nice black character (their Astrid, sorry!) in favour of a much less bland (and wonderful) white replacement someone for Artie to talk to, but I have faith that Their Astrid will be back in some new placing that serves her better. And they also may do more with their black shouty boss, who has some humour to her. And every now and then I do feel that it's all a bit rushed and tightly-budgeted, that just five more minutes and a few more dollars could let it breathe. But I'll bet this ramps up for a second season.

I loved the first season of Dollhouse with only very small reserve, because rather like Fringe it seemed to be an incredibly hard sell that worked only because great writers were in charge. I can't imagine starting a pitch for a show with 'so there are these mindless prostitutes...' It's about good and evil, making us follow and like a whole bunch of people who are doing terrible things. That process, of being forced by quality writing to identify with frigging war criminals is, I think, both incredibly valuable in terms of modern drama (because in real life, you and I and everyone else let people off the hook for terrible things all the time because they're on our side or have a nice smile or are our friends) and why the show tends to alienate Whedon fans, who didn't realise that the truly great creators are the ones who look at what their followers most like about them and do the opposite. (I'm thinking about Russell Davies following up Queer as Folk with Bob and Rose.) The fans who say 'I really liked that last episode, you know, the one with the clear cut moral lines' are missing the point. This show entirely depends on Eliza Dushku giving us an empathy figure, and the only (sort of) good person to root for, in her 'unreal' characters of the week and as a kind of trace element in Echo. And she's good enough to make that work. Again, hell of a tightrope act, brilliant show. I refuse to download illegally, so I look forward to season two starting this week.

Lost continues to excel. I've never seen season two, having returned to the fold for the third, and I honestly think that's probably the best way to do it, because as soon as that team had a finishing line in sight, they started playing all the surprises they were previously saving for later. The way that show functions entirely on character, revelations about 'the truth', trailers apart, having now been almost entirely given to us (there are only a couple more things we need to know), is a joy. The standard Lost shot lingers on the blankness of the human face. It's another expression of the SF question lies at the heart of Dollhouse: what are people, really? Is there anything meaningful inside that face at all? (I do wonder if J.G. Ballard ever saw this so New Wave series.) And yet, amongst that, we've found depth (or a surprising lack of it) in layers of character in so many people. From last season, I really want 'The Variable', a new take on the SF time paradox short story, with a killer twist, to be Hugo nominated, because I can't think of a single episode of television that's more in the spirit of those awards.

True Blood is yet another tightrope walk, this time between guilty pleasure vampire fun sort of parody on the one side and hard serious adult HBO show on the other. There was a wobble a couple of episodes in, but the series quickly sorted out exactly how seriously it took itself, and is now an absolute pleasure for me. In the character of Amy Burley, hippie vampire hunter for fun and profit, it presents, like a lot of these shows, a complete Nazi who we took, on first impressions, to be very cool. She terrifies me. She and our vampire lead are both pretending to be complete people (a condition which Stephen Moyer conveys with surprisingly finesse), but Bill thinks humans are worthwhile, and Amy thinks vampires are simply not on her ethical scale. And let's check the black character meter: at least two of them, both crunchy and spiky and well-played. And Lafayette is one of telefantasy's two gay men! Count them, two!

Of Flash Forward I've only so far seen the excellent pilot, which thoroughly wowed me with the very SFnal way its characters worked through every inch of the logic of the situation. But I haven't yet felt obliged to catch up with it. This is our genre's current crossover hit, though, taking the real world by storm. And again, it's all about character in the face of backstory. What we may be seeing here is a kind of post-9/11 wave, beginning with Lost, of series that explore what the meaning of personhood is against large, traumatic events that are beyond their control.

And to complete the list: I don't feel I'm in the target audience for Merlin, which, when I see a little of it, looks entirely honest, well-crafted and competent. Smallville for King Arthur seems to work pretty well. I'm just not emotionally attracted to it, but if I had children I might be a major fan.

I look forward to seeing how the poll works out, and comparing the result to the actual Hugo nominations. We shall test the wisdom of crowds! I hope I'll see some of you at the Royal Greenwich Observatory next Friday. Until then, Cheerio!

I'm Not Going to New York...

Thu, 15 Oct 2009 20:41:48 GMT

It's complicated. Half of it is being too busy to go anywhere right now, and half of it is... well, with a week to go before the event, I'd rather started to wonder if the Big Apple Comic Con was actually going to get me there. The guy who originally invited me was made redundant the day after he did so. Which doesn't fill one with confidence. But, sure enough, his boss was kind enough to honour the commitment. And there was some communication on that score. However, by the start of this week, I'd noticed that days were ticking by without any actual arrangements being made. So I finally said that if they'd already bought the air ticket, then of course I'd come, because I didn't want them to lose out financially because of me, but if they hadn't, then not to worry about it. Which resulted in... absolute silence. So when I say I'm not going to New York... well, that's my best guess as we speak.

Meanwhile, I have a couple of things to tell you about. First up, I'm part of a debate at the Royal Greenwich Observatory, Greenwich, on the evening of Friday 23rd October. It's called Space: From Infinite Dreams to Recurring Nightmares, and is about where SF and the space programme are going, and if they're going there together. I'm the SF writer on a panel of science and journalism folk. You can find all the details here. The RGO has been a place of great romance for me ever since a random encounter, at an impressionable age, with TV astronomer Heather Couper led me to pursue, well, as it turned out, mostly Heather Couper, in a kind of distant, gawping way. But my failed science career and first crush, and the connection between the two, need not concern us here. I hope I won't be too lost in awe of lovely Greenwich to do my bit on the panel.

Next up, the chaps from the Geek Syndicate podcast have put up the Seventy Years of Marvel panel they did at the British International Comics Show with me, Andy Diggle, Mark Farmer and Alan Davis. They do their usual splendid job of presenting. You can find us all boggling at the size of the crowd and having our covers appear as a slide show here.

When I was at FenCon (and could I just mention, yet again, for no particular reason, how gloriously well-organised the guest liaison side of that show was?), fellow guest Keith R.A. DeCandido interviewed me about Doctor Who and comics for the Chronic Rift podcast. You can find that one here.

I ought to say something here, though he merits much more than a passing mention, about how sad I was to hear of the passing away of former Doctor Who producer, and stalwart of British television, Barry Letts. I met him on several occasions, and he was always lovely, on the last occasion, as I mentioned in a previous blog, particularly so. He was kind, calm, and honest, and he always gave one the feeling that here was someone who'd been creative in many different ways over his long career. His religious beliefs were very much part of the ethical mix of Doctor Who, a positive influence on the childhood of myself and I'm sure many others. I think fan performer Will Howells puts it better than I could in this sweet tribute:

This weekend, if I'm, you know, in the UK, I hope to blog about the various different SF shows on television at the moment. Mainly because I'm suddenly in love with Stargate: Universe, in the most surprising way. It may well encourage me to pursue a career in science... no, no, on second thoughts, I've seen where that path takes me. Until then, Cheerio.

Novelcon Live Streaming!

Sat, 10 Oct 2009 21:19:03 GMT

As it turns out, tomorrow's (11th October) Novelcon, about the Doctor Who novels, in Manchester, is going to be broadcast live on the internet, from 10.30am. If you fancy joining us remotely, direct your browser here: http://www.ustream.tv/channel/novelcon

Novelcon

Tue, 06 Oct 2009 10:05:02 GMT

Had a lovely time at the British International Comics Show: inspired by one of the panels, I bought loads of French comics. Me and Diggle did a good panel with the Geek Syndicate lads, I thought. The only problem was a rather lacking choice of official bar on the Friday night, leading to a completely splintered evening on the Saturday as everyone headed somewhere different. And the bar is what those shows are about, as the community of British comics folk sees each other so infrequently.

New Doctor Who logo: my heart was filled with joy. And anticipation. And appreciation of what policewomen are wearing these days. If Amy Pond is actually a policewoman. Oh, but she could be a policewoman from the future. A future where SFX's Nick Setchfield was Home Secretary.

Anyway, I'm vastly busy, but I thought I'd pop in to talk about Novelcon this Sunday, 11th October. It's a one day event about the Doctor Who novels across the ages, at the Lass O'Gowrie pub in Manchester, from 10am. You can get tickets and find out all the details here.

My fellow guests will be: Daniel Blythe; Dale Smith; Martin Day; Steve Lyons; Peter Anghelides; Paul Magrs; Andrew Cartmel; Trevor Baxendale; Justin Richards; David McIntee; Mark Morris; Simon Guerrier and Mark Michalowski. And the MC will be comedian and SFX blogger John Cooper. If the previous Lass event, about the Who comics, is anything to go by, there'll be all sorts of audiovisual back-up, a thorough examination of the subject matter, and loads of related fun in the gaps. A Who fan owning a pub and completely giving it over to his fellows for a specialist convention provides an excellent experience. I hope to see you there, and until then, Cheerio!

BICS, When It Changed and Cinema Futura

Tue, 29 Sep 2009 09:21:16 GMT

I'm very much looking forward to going along to the Birmingham International Comics Show this weekend. It's one of my favourite conventions, with a party on the Friday night that's basically all my friends from British comics in one of those enormous ancient bars that looks like a beached galleon, all brass railings and wooden rises. I'll be on the 'Seventy Years of Marvel Comics' panel on the Saturday, signing at various times, and generally around. Howard Chaykin, Mark Buckingham, Andy Diggle and many others will enliven the proceedings, and Garry Leach will be painting a cover live. The panels are all held in a purpose-built lecture theatre in the round, which really makes a difference. You can find all the details here.

It's just as well I'm finding fun, because Sunday was the last day of the English cricket season, that terrible moment when the shadows grow long and the inexorable spin into the long darkness of winter begins. I know this looks like a handsome autumn so far, but it'll all be slush and rain and cold before you know it. And some people actually like this time of year! Hmmph. I'm managing my comics pages in the morning, and novel revision or short story writing in the afternoon, and I'm now largely over post-convention snuffles. Caroline's now working full time at her theological college, so I've largely got the day to myself again. Which is, you know, a mixture of good and bad. I haven't yet finished that astonishing coffee that Rhonda from FenCon gave me, which is like being slapped awake by a blueberry dressed in silk. Or something.

Two announcements should be made. Firstly, When It Changed, a new anthology from Comma Press, which I have a story in, is out on October 22nd. It's edited by the esteemed Geoff Ryman, and the idea is that SF writers are paired up with scientists, and write about that person's specialist subject, said scientist then providing an introduction to the story. I was matched with a chap called Rob Appleby, who works on the Large Hadron Collider at CERN. I was also lucky enough to get Michael Moorcock's approval (and he's keen to stress that such approval is needed), to use his character Jerry Cornelius. I share the book with people like Gwyneth Jones, Ken MacLeod, Justina Robson and Liz Williams, and there's a launch on October 24th at the Friends' Meeting House in Manchester. I'm thoroughly excited by the whole boiling. You can check it out here.

I'm also featured in Cinema Futura, coming out from PS Publishing in September next year, which is a collection of essays about SF and fantasy movies, one writer per movie. I'll be writing about 2010, and I share book space with folk like Brian Stableford, Christopher Priest, Ian McDonald and Alastair Reynolds. The full list is on editor Mark Morris' blog here.

Until I see you in Birmingham or elsewhere, Cheerio!

Bristolcon and Post-FenCon

Fri, 25 Sep 2009 08:18:03 GMT

Well, FenCon was excellent. It's one of those conventions run by a gang of mates who've been together forever, but they're interested in outreach, in attracting an audience, so it wasn't like a couple of those I've been to where you feel like you're at someone else's yearly general meeting and it's all a bit grim. They're keen that new attendees feel it's their party too. I made a lot of new friends (Alan J. Porter, Warren Buff, Carla Ulbrich, Keith DeCandido, hello). Guest of Honour Lois McMaster Bujold was delightful, popping along to other people's panels, with loads of questions about comics, because her Miles Vorkosigan saga has just started to be adapted in a French anthology. I really enjoyed being Toastmaster, because it gave me a chance to present, to interact with an audience and improvise. I don't think I've ever been exposed to that much filk music before. It's a slightly unusual mix for a convention: SF; music; science (with NASA guys up from Houston); media. And they take it all equally seriously. It works. And they've got a record number of pre-registrations for next year, so the party's going to be even bigger next time out. I may well pop back just for the fun of it.

Tomorrow is Bristolcon, the world's smallest convention. (I suppose the vanishing point for that would be, say, Corey Doctorow stepping into a cardboard box and declaring it to be BoxCon, with just him, but then he'd have to do at least one panel and take audience questions.) It runs from 2.45pm to 5.45pm, during which they'll fit in five panels. Which means we'll be talking faster than me Keith DeCandido on the 'two men yell about comics like they're on speed' panel at FenCon. (And okay, there are social events in the evening.) It's actually smaller than both MicroCon and PicoCon (and PicoCon is bigger than MicroCon, so what's that about?) I'm looking forward to it, assuming I can get my health together, because...

I came back from FenCon with a Post Convention Condition of some kind. It's just a big rude cold, but for a while there I thought I'd lost the Swine Flu lottery. This is actually a recognised syndrome in fandom. It's traditionally called Con Crud. We get together once a year, and shove right up close in con suites, sweating over mayo dips. Not enough time to share immunities, plenty of time to hothouse a virus. This is, after all, what happened to the American Legion. It was their convention that led to the naming of Legionaire's Disease. I wonder if SF fandom will ever get a disease named for us? (Pause for twenty minutes of self-hating humour from Doctor Who fans.) Maybe I'm just allergic to filk. There's a Robert Palmer song in there somewhere.

So last night, I propped myself up and stumbled sweating through the crowds at the reception on the first night of Caroline's first term at theological college, or Vicar School as I'm sure a BBC3 documentary series would have it. I wonder if it'll be just her this morning, with everyone else in bed with the snuffles? I'm so proud of her, to have finally started on her life's ambition. It looks like an interesting course: I quite fancy sneaking in the back of some of the lectures.

I'm still managing six pages of comics and 1000 words of Wild Cards every day, mind you. That's my minimum requirement for facing myself in the mirror without feeling unemployed. Ah, and talking of which...

That's Adi Granov's fabulous cover for issue two of Black Widow: A Deadly Origin, coming to you from me, Tom Raney and John Paul Leon this autumn.

And finally, a few months before I'll start really raving about it (it's out next March), here's the cover to Chicks Dig Time Lords, an anthology of articles by female writers (and at least one man, unfortunately) about Doctor Who and its fandom. It's co-edited by my old friend Tara O'Shea, and it promises to be excellent.

It's already available on Amazon UK: you can find it here

I think it might cause quite a stir in the mainstream British media. Anyhow, that's me for today. I shall leave you, coughing and spluttering, and hope to see some of you tomorrow. But don't get too close. Cheerio.

Hugo Short Form Drama Poll

Wed, 23 Sep 2009 13:44:59 GMT

I've set up a poll to ask the wisdom of crowds what will be on the Hugo Awards ballot next year, for TV shows that have screened episodes this year. Do go have a look:

www.paulcornell.com/

FenCon

Tue, 15 Sep 2009 09:10:07 GMT

This Thursday, I'm flying off to Dallas for FenCon, which promises, if their guest liaison prior to the event is anything to go by, to be highly enjoyable. Never before have I been asked what sort of cookies I'd like. I mean, by a convention. My life isn't that sparse and loveless. I'm actually getting on the plane back on the Sunday night, before work life won't let me do more than a long weekend. I'm going to be Toastmaster at the event, which basically lets me MC the masquerade and things like that, which makes me happy, in that it brings me one step closer to my life's ambition of being Kermit the Frog. I'm on the following panels:

Friday, 3pm: Meet me. This will be empty apart from me. It'll continue in the bar, but not until after -

Friday, 6pm: Just A Minute. Yes, I'm hosting again. With guests Keith R.A. DeCandido, Alan Porter, Tom Smith and Shanna Swendson.

Friday, 7pm: Opening Ceremonies.

Friday, 8pm: Orac Party. I don't know what the 'Orac' bit means. Perhaps it's standing around clutching glasses of wine being bitchy and overtly dogmatic. So like any other SF convention party, then. Except in the UK, where we'd be clutching real ale.

Friday, 9pm: Doctor Who panel. That's the proper time for one, really, so it'll be full of laughter and goodwill. For some reason, that's not the case for Who panels at SF events in the morning.

Saturday, 11am: A panel about Endings. Interesting.

Saturday, 1pm: Autographs only for Friends of the Fen. They really should bring this convention to Norfolk.

Saturday, 3pm: Reading. I'll be reading from my short stories, and maybe a bit from the novel in progress.

Sunday, noon: Star Trek vs. Doctor Who. Two much-loved long-running SF shows. But... which is better? There's only one way to find out...

Sunday, 2pm: Me and Keith DeCandido talk about writing comics.

Sunday, 3pm: 70 Years of Marvel Comics.

Quite a classy haul, I think. But what I'm most looking forward to is discovering what seems to be a chunky outpost of 'does a bit of everything' fandom, who have the good taste to have selected Lois McMaster Bujold as their Guest of Honour. I hope I'll get to see a bit of Dallas at the same time.

In other news, the first collection of Gail Simone's Secret Six, Unhinged, is out, and I'm proud to have written the introduction, so do look out for that.

And finally, I was saddened to hear of the passing away of Keith Floyd, the TV chef who lived in my home town for many years. I only met him once or twice, and knew his partner only a little better, but I do recall a pleasant day spent playing cricket with him, for the town's Sunday side (effectively the third best team). I was managing the side, which basically meant trying to get eleven people to show up. Keith opened the batting, and was the only man I've ever seen 'lapped' as he ran between the wickets, his partner having run three to his one. The other team were so enchanted by him they let him get away with it. He'd once played in the same charity side as Ian Botham, so that gave us all something to say at dinner parties. He brought along an enthusiastic crowd of friends, a brilliant lunch hamper, several bottles of wine and a lot of charming anecdotes, and was as sweet that day as you'd expect him to be from what you see on TV. It was a pleasure to share a town with him.

Until next time, Cheerio.

Vampire State This Week

Wed, 09 Sep 2009 06:13:14 GMT

Just to let you know that the Marvel collected edition of the final volume of Captain Britain and MI-13, Vampire State, will be in your comic shops on Thursday. The Panini edition, reversing the recent trend, won't be with us for a few weeks.

Meanwhile, boss of Marvel Joe Quesada is about to tell the world all the details of the Marvel/Disney deal. The folk at Comic Book Resources have set a ticking clock countdown to when it all goes public. You can see it all here.

And I have only five whole working days before I'm off to Fencon (where I'm honoured to be toastmaster) and I have to pack them with work. So until next time, Cheerio.