Month: September 2019

Carnival Row – A fairytale for our dark times

Having just watched the entire run of the first series of Carnival Row, I can only say – when’s the next one?

Set in an alternative world more sinister and brutal than Lyra’s in His Dark Materials, this is most definitely a fable for grown-ups.

We discover here a well-realised world in which Victorian-level technology intersects with the wonders and magic of the creatures of Tir Na Nog – a once-fabled realm of real pixies, centaurs and other mythological beasts – whose unspoiled natural homeland two rival empires battle to rule: The Iron Pact and the Burgh.

When the Burgh withdraws from the war, leaving Tir Na Nog in the hands of the even more brutal Iron Pact, refugees come flooding into The Burgh, leading to all kinds of unsettling developments which strain the already tearing fabric of Burgh society.

This, then, is the setting for a very real discussion of the nature of racism in the realm of faery and humans. The half-human half-ram race of “pucks” are essentially slaves in the Burgh, and all Fae, nicknamed Kritches, are despised by human society. But there are glimmers of civilization, and acceptance among a few – and one strand that even echoes Beauty and the Beast in a very much grittier setting.

The story is brilliantly unwound. At times a love story, at others a devastating commentary on populist politicians who seek to create chaos in order to provide themselves with opportunities for advancement, at others still a version of Ripper Street with fairies, and occasionally a commentary on inter-racial (inter-species!?) sex and relationships, the show is beautifully filmed.

Cara Delevingne has a powerful presence, and Orlando Bloom is expertly matched as the grizzled and hardened inspector seeking to track down a murderer who is killing Fae folk. The scripting is usually pitch perfect with very, very occasional lapses into predictable dialogue.

In all, it’s a steampunk dream with a very dark edge, splashed with power hunger, bigotry and the desperate need to find love and meaning in a world that before our eyes lurches further and further to the right. If this isn’t a fairytale for our dark times, I don’t know what is!

When The Snow Witch Escaped Me

As a writer, I’m going through something of an adjustment at the moment. Something I never really factored into my experience as an author is happening to me.

To explain – some time ago I wrote a novel based in Portsmouth called The Snow Witch. I personally know it’s the best piece of fiction writing I’ve ever done. I wrote it in a particularly ethereal style, but made the characters and the town really gritty and real. Some I made deliberately enigmatic. This combination led to the book coming out in the genre of magical realism.

Magical realism is a fabulous genre. It mixes the allegorical, the real and the mystical into a quite addictive brew that plays with your sense of what is possible.

I knew I had done something right when people who read it approached me and told me how much they enjoyed it. Over and over again. I was selling my books off a market stall once, telling a prospective customer about it, when a previous buyer marched across to me having spotted me, their arm outstretched, stared at me intensely and pronounced: “That’s brilliant!” then marched off.

This is deeply gratifying.

But recently, an artist, Lucille Scott from Little Duck Forge approached me and asked me if she could run an art exhibition based on the book. This was again, deeply flattering. So, we are having an art exhibition in Cascades in autumn 2019 based on the book. 40 artists have signed up for it. It is quite extraordinary.

Then, another artist came to me, asking to make the book the centre of another arts project. This has become Cursed City – which tells another new story of Donitza Kravitch, the book’s eponymous witch – that takes place in Portsmouth, though social media, street art and live events.

Much of the original story takes place in The Model Village, Southsea. Last Thursday I went down there to meet up with local artist James Waterfield and Roy Hanney, who is the creator of this project. James is a great local artist, and he had been working on a secret project as part of Cursed City.

James Waterfield, AKA, Lawn of the Dead
James Waterfield, AKA, Lawn of the Dead

He had created two figurines to place in the Model Village both depicting characters from my book. I looked at them and had a moment of real dumbfoundedness. Basically, I was holding an action figure in my hand that was his conception of Donitza. Someone had made a whole new work of art based on my creation!

I’ve worked with artists before, but nothing – absolutely nothing like this has ever happened to me. It felt surreal. Like, a thing that I thought of had come to life, stepped into reality, independently of me. I didn’t know what to think.

The figurines of Donitza playing her violin and Reynold Lissitch pasting up street art are now safely installed in the village. And I feel like reality is shifting for me. That Donitza has escaped the pages of my book, and begun to take on a life of her own. And I am standing, watching her move and grow, and am bewildered.