14TH UK PAPERBACK & PULP BOOKFAIR
This will take place on Sunday, 19th October 2003 between 10:00 am and 4:00 pm at THE PARK PLAZA HOTEL, 239 Vauxhall Bridge Road (next to Victoria Station) London SW1. Admission will be £2.50.From the Press Release:
Huge number of paperbacks and pulps. Horror, SF, Fantasy, Crime, TV and Film related, Western, Adventure, Vintage, Penguins, Pans, comics, ephemera and guides.
Early afternoon signings (subject to commitment):
Authors: SYDNEY J. BOUNDS, PAT CADIGAN, SIMON CLARK, ERNEST DUDLEY, SIMON R. GREEN, STEPHEN GALLAGHER, PHILIP E. HIGH, GRAHAM JOYCE, STEPHEN LAWS, KIM NEWMAN, FREDERICK NOLAN, MICHAEL MARSHALL SMITH and BRIAN STABLEFORD.
Editors/Anthologists/Critics: MIKE ASHLEY, PHILIP HARBOTTLE, STEVE HOLLAND, STEPHEN JONES, HUGH LAMB and MICHEL PARRY.
Artists: LES EDWARDS and SAM PEFFER.
For more information contact either:
R. Wardzinski Tel: 01202 849 212 e-mail: books@thetalkingdead.fsnet.co.uk
or
M. Flanagan Tel: 01373 865371 e-mail: zardoz@blueyonder.co.uk
HALLOWEEN EVENT IN BRADFORD
On the drawing board for a while but recently confirmed, there's to be an authors' panel at Waterstones Bookshop in Bradford on the evening of Friday, October 31st.
The intended lineup includes Ramsey Campbell, Mark Morris, Simon Clark, Peter Crowther, and Stephen Gallagher.
OKTOBER DVD FEATURES
The list of features for the October 27th DVD release is now shaping up.
"I went down to see the people at Revelation in July and recorded an on-camera interview. I left them with various storyboard sketches and scribbles, and the annotated shooting script that I took onto the set every day.
"Brian Eastman's given permission to use any Carnival-owned material, which covers some deleted scenes and alternate cuts as well as the presskit material and brochure art from the time of the original screening.
"I've signed a release to include the text of my production diary (see A Year in Oktober elsewhere on this site) and Maxine Tate has located the anamorphic widescreen master, made at the time of the original telecine transfer but never broadcast - widescreen TV was only just about to take off and so a letterboxed 14 X 9 transfer was used instead."
Lance Entertainment is in discussions with Revelation to see which, if any, of the features may be applicable to their US release.
Lance will be releasing the 95 minute 'telemovie' version of the series in Region 1.
NOMINATIONS!
LITTLE DEAD GIRL SINGING has made the final ballot in the short story category of this year's World Fantasy Awards.
And WHITE BIZANGO has a nomination in the 2003 British Fantasy Awards, for Best Novel (the August Derleth Fantasy Award).
From the WHITE BIZANGO review in INTERZONE: "In Gallagher's earlier novel VALLEY OF LIGHTS corpses come back to life through paranormal, monstrous means: WHITE BIZANGO and its voodoo cops investigate the same narrative possibilities and confront the same images, but they do so in fully rationalist terms. It is as if Gallagher has preserved the shock tropes of horror fiction, while nevertheless genre-shifting them. This tale feels like dark fantasy in spirit and crime fiction in execution."THE DARK
Cover artwork for the Ellen Datlow-edited anthology THE DARK has just been released.
The anthology contains the novella DOCTOR HOOD. Its characters inspired the TV pilot DARK MATTER, currently in development with Granada Television.
Although THE DARK is a collection of ghost stories, the novella's TV spinoff is a non-supernatural show format.
The anthology will be published by TOR in October. For a full list of the contents and a discussion of the book, see Ellen Datlow's messageboard at the Nightshade Books site.
MAGAZINES ON SALE
Trying to track down that elusive short story? The Dynamic Pulps website is recommended not only as a source of reasonably-priced back issues of classic SF magazines, but as a mine of bibliographical information on the featured contributors.
Issues of F&SF on sale include the first appearances of TO DANCE BY THE LIGHT OF THE MOON, MY REPEATER, and NO LIFE FOR ME WITHOUT YOU, VODYANOI.
13th PAPERBACK AND PULP BOOKFAIR
Horror Novelist Stephen Laws has also joined the guest list for this event, which will take place on Sunday October 19th, 2003 at the Park Plaza Hotel, 239 Vauxhall Bridge Rd, adjacent to London's Victoria Station.
Guests include Ernest Dudley, Sydney J Bounds, Sam Peffer (Peff), and Frederick Christian (author of the SUDDEN western series).
NEW SHOW WITH ZENITH - MORE DETAILS
"Julian's okayed me to talk with the proviso that I use my discretion. The show's called DEFENDERS OF MARS and it's set about a century hence. Nobody was interested in Mars until we got there, and then it was like the dotcom boom all over again - rash levels of investment, an entire infrastructure thrown in all at once, instant collapse when reality bit. . . now it's unfinished cities and roads that go nowhere and empty airship terminals and a terraforming program that never even got started. All the workers shipped back. Now all you'll find there is the scum of the solar system and a small group of young people who were purpose-bred and can't come 'home'. The show's about their continuing survival and their long-term aim to secure a livable Mars for their descendants."
NEW INTERVIEW
Conducted by Matt Williams. Read it online by clicking here.
DIARY DATES
The FUTURE CRIME panel at the NFT is scheduled for 2pm on the afternoon of Saturday, July 12th 2003 and the Nigel Kneale event takes place in Manchester on the evening of Friday, July 18th.
Scroll down and see the previous news items for further details on both events.
OKTOBER IN REGIONS 1 AND 2
Revelation Films' Region 2 release of the complete three-hour miniseries is on course for October 27th, 2003.
Full details of the disc specification and extras should be available in time for this site's August update. Carnival Films has located the anamorphic widescreen master and agreed the inclusion of deleted material. "We're looking through stuff like storyboard sketches and artwork to see what can be included, and I'm taping an interview in a couple of weeks' time."
Also in October, Lance Entertainment will bring out their Region 1 DVD release for the USA. Lance's deal is for the ninety-five minute 'telemovie' version. No word as yet on extras.
AND FOR TV...
Granada Television has commissioned a pilot script for a new science-and-suspense series with the working title of DARK MATTER.
The main characters are based on those appearing in DOCTOR HOOD, the novella bought by Ellen Datlow for her forthcoming anthology THE DARK.
NIGEL KNEALE EVENT IN MANCHESTER
SG will mc at an NK night at Manchester's Cornerhouse Cinema on Friday, July 18th.
Although Kneale himself is believed unlikely to be making an appearance, the plan is to show the two surviving episodes of THE QUATERMASS EXPERIMENT, along with an excerpt from a 1965 LINE NIGHT LINE UP featuring Kneale, and THE PHOTOGRAPH - a 1978 reading for television of a TOMATO CAIN story, with the reader being Tom Baker.
NOWHERE NEAR AN ANGEL
Steve will be providing the introduction for this new novel from Mark Morris, whose previous works include TOADY (aka THE HORROR CLUB), STITCH, THE IMMACULATE, MR BAD FACE, FIDDLEBACK, and the recent PS novella THE UGLIMEN.
13th PAPERBACK AND PULP BOOKFAIR
This event will take place on Sunday October 19th, 2003 at the Park Plaza Hotel, 239 Vauxhall Bridge Rd, adjacent to London's Victoria Station.
Guests include Ernest Dudley, Sydney J Bounds, Sam Peffer (Peff), and Frederick Christian (author of the SUDDEN western series).
SG plans to be joining them if work commitments allow.
THE FESTIVAL OF FANTASTIC FILMS
Christopher Eccleston heads this year's guest lineup. His genre-related appearances include 28 DAYS and THE SECOND COMING.
Visit the Festival website for more guest information and further details about the weekend.
CRIME SCENE AT THE NFT
This year's festival devoted to crime fiction in film and literature will include a panel on the subject of 'Future Crime', featuring SF and fantasy authors who, according to organiser Maxim Jakubowski, "acknowledge a possible debt to crime fiction and its tropes, noir and otherwise."
Already on board are Stephen Gallagher, Richard Morgan, Adam Roberts, Paul McAuley and Jon Courtenay Grimwood.
The festival will run over three days and feature 75 major US and UK crime authors.
The Future Crime panel is slated for the evening of Saturday, July 12th.
INTERVIEWS
The April issue of RED HERRINGS, the monthly bulletin of the Crime Writers' Association, carried a text version of Sandy Auden's SG interview for The Alien Online.
And from THE THIRD ALTERNATIVE magazine:
"TTA34 has cover art by Richard Marchand (shortlisted for the BSFA Award for Best Artwork for his cover art on TTA32 - results not yet known) and lots of interior art; extraordinary new stories by Alan Wall, Patrick Samphire, Eric Brown, Leslie What, Mike O'Driscoll, Tim Lees, Paul Meloy, James Sallis; interviews with Alan Wall, Jonathan Carroll, Stephen Gallagher, Iain Sinclair; a fascinating overview of the films of Alejandro Jodorowsky; guest editorial by Muriel Gray; all the usual columns and reviews."
You can buy The 3rd Alternative and Crimewave online by following this link.
OKTOBER ON DVD
OKTOBER will be available on DVD and VHS in the United Kingdom from October 27th, 2003.
Early indications are that the three-episode miniseries will be offered in full and that the DVD package will include extras. The distributor is Revelation Films and technical specifications will be published as soon as they're available.
"I've now been contacted by Revelation and they've some good ideas for extras which, obviously, I can't go into until they've been confirmed. We're not awash with 'making of' coverage or unused material but there are still some interesting possibilities to pursue. Carnival is checking to see what's in the vaults."
The cover disc on the March 2003 issue of TOTAL DVD magazine includes an Oktober trailer.
THE FARSCAPE THAT NEVER WAS
If you're looking for the complete version of the unmade pre-FARSCAPE proposal featured in SFX Magazine, scroll down this section for an introduction and link.
THE YEAR'S BEST
The short story LITTLE DEAD GIRL SINGING, originally published in WEIRD TALES issue 327, has been selected by Ellen Datlow for inclusion in THE YEAR'S BEST FANTASY AND HORROR 16 and by Stephen Jones for BEST NEW HORROR 14.JAILBIRD FOR JESUS has been picked up by Maxim Jakubowski for THE YEAR'S BEST BRITISH MYSTERY STORIES.
SHORT STORY COLLECTION NEWS
Charles L Grant will be writing the introduction to the forthcoming short fiction collection from PS Publishing.
Author, editor, anthologist, and one of the most respected figures in the field, Grant was responsible for the first publication of three of the stories likely to be appearing in the volume.
"I've always maintained that my first sales to SHADOWS and to F & SF felt like the real breakthrough points in my professional career. Publishers bought my novels because, regardless of what they personally thought of them, they reckoned the books would make money. But Charlie Grant and Ed Ferman picked stories because they thought they were good. Their approval counted for so much more."
More on the messageboard.
NEW SHORT STORY
THE BOX, just completed. Watch here for publication details.
WHITE BIZANGO FIRST REVIEWS
DON D'AMMASSA writes, in Chronicle (formerly Science Fiction Chronicle):
"I believe this is the first non-fantastic title from PS, and it's a good one. Stephen Gallagher writes very excellent horror fiction, not frequently enough, along with thrillers, into which category I'd put this short novel, even though for most of its length the reader isn't sure whether the magic is real or not.
"The narrator is a police detective who encounters a voodoo master when he interferes with a kidnapping, as a consequence of which he is nearly autopsied while still alive. The balance of the novel is his battle to track down the bad guy, and while he never once believes that his opponent is anything more than a very clever con man, the reader might not be quite as certain.
"This is one you'll devour in a single sitting because Gallagher never lets his story flag and drags you breathlessly along for the ride."
INTERVIEW LINKS
There are two new SG interviews online this month, at SciFiCom, the SciFi Channel's UK website, and at The Alien Online.
SHORT STORY COLLECTION FOR 2004
No formal announcement can be made yet, but we may be seeing a long-overdue collection of SG's short fiction in the Spring of next year.
The prospect was raised by Peter Crowther of PS Publishing, and discussions are under way about the wordcount, cover artist, and the selection of titles for inclusion.
The volume will carry a guest introduction and also author notes to introduce the individual stories.
If there's any particular title you want to suggest or nominate, now's your chance. Go to the Stories menu for a checklist.
MESSAGEBOARD NOW UP AND RUNNING
Got a question or a comment? Something you want to discuss? Or even if you merely crave attention... a click here will take you to the messageboard, new to the site this month.
Many thanks to the good people at Nightshade Books for hosting this amenity. Nightshade's catalog of in-print and forthcoming titles includes books by Graham Joyce, M John Harrison and Tim Lebbon, along with new collaborative work by Jeff VanderMeer and Mark Roberts.
The list also includes new editions of classic works of fantasy by Lord Dunsany, Manly Wade Wellman, and Karl Edward Wagner.
NEW IN DEVELOPMENT
SG has delivered the pilot episode treatment and 'bible' of an ambitious new TVSF series. The commissioning company is Zenith Productions and the producer is Julian Scott, formerly of CTW and Disney.
Also newly in development is a feature screenplay based on one of the published short stories, for a major UK production house. Details to follow when the deal is concluded.
GAVIN LYALL
This site is sad to note the passing of influential thriller writer Gavin Lyall, author of THE WRONG SIDE OF THE SKY, MIDNIGHT PLUS ONE, VENUS WITH PISTOL, and other classics of adventure and suspense. His Norway-set novel BLAME THE DEAD is cited as an inspiration behind SG's FOLLOWER."Gavin Lyall was always the Top Guy for me, the very best of that formidable generation of '60s adventure writers, and it was MIDNIGHT PLUS ONE that opened my eyes to the possibilities of the pan-European thriller. I saw how our island horizons could be expanded to the kind of unlimited landscape available to American authors, all without losing the essential British character of a story. His fiction had a unique texture, a real vision. When other writers went to Europe, you tended to see everything from the lounge of the Intercontinental Hotel. With Lyall you got the fast roads and the grim dives and a hero with limited means battling the odds. He was a first-rate novelist whose work expanded the boundaries of genre."
WHITE BIZANGO NOW SHIPPING
Rescued from the morgue and a bizarre and unpleasant end, Louisiana detective John Lafcadio owes his life to the Cult Crime Co-ordinators. Known also as the Voodoo Cops, their job is to dispel superstition and nail crimes of ignorance.
There's a growing need for their services. A new kind of predator is on the loose. When the middle classes began to adopt vodoun as a lifestyle fad, their doors were opened to a ruthless white male with a command of the religion's darker practical secrets.
Hunting down Lafcadio's would-be killer will be no easy task. His victims are also his protectors. And how can Lafcadio hope to identify a man whose eyes he once stared into, but whose face he can't remember?
FROM THE INTRODUCTION BY JOE R LANSDALE:
"WHITE BIZANGO's mood wraps around you like a warm blanket. Gave me the kind of sensation I used to have as a kid, watching some monster movie late at night, rainy and windy outside, sitting on the couch or in front of it, tenting a blanket over me, feeling wonderfully and pleasantly terrified."
Click here to order the novel from Amazon or here to go to the publisher's website.
And click here for a complete John Lafcadio short story exclusive to this site until the end of January.
As part of its ongoing Archive Television project, the British Film institute has released two of the long-awaited films originally broadcast by the BBC under its Ghost Story for Christmas banner.
The Ghost Story for Christmas was an annual broadcasting event, capturing perfectly the atmospheric understatement of the Victorian and Edwardian originals. Chimera director and Chillers creator Lawrence Gordon Clark was the dominant creative force in the series.
A Warning to the Curious was both adapted and directed by Gordon Clark, based on the M R James short story. He also directed the tale featured on the second disc, The Signalman, with a script adapted by Andrew Davies from the story by Charles Dickens.
Further information from the BFI website or click here to order from Amazon.
Last year it was a Christmas short story...
This year it's the full text of an unmade series proposal, written at the invitation of the Jim Henson organisation in 1993.
"I had a meeting with Duncan Kenworthy and Angus Fletcher at the Groucho Club at the beginning of 1993. They were looking for someone to work up ideas for a new SF show that would, essentially, keep the Creature Workshop ticking over between feature projects. At that point it was going to be called Space Chase and feature lots of latex makeups and monsters. They gave me a one-page brief with a few specifics included, like the hero being woken from cold sleep and a dolphin navigator, but beyond that they were pretty much open on where it could go.
So this is what I went away and wrote. To cut a long story short, they went for it. Loved the take and asked if they could show it to Fox, who were putting up the money, for their approval. I think by this point I was dealing mainly with Angus; Duncan had gone off to produce a little side-project called Four Weddings and a Funeral.
But Fox turned it down. The word that reached me was that they wanted an American showrunner (writer-producer) in the driving seat, and that was that. Some time later I got a call and went down to meet Rockne O'Bannon, whose credits included Alien Nation and Seaquest DSV and who was now developing his own material for the show as Farscape. We passed a pleasant hour, but it was really just a courtesy thing as they'd already decided on their writing lineup for season one and the people they had were all, I think, American writers. I wished him well, and he went on to make a pretty good show under a much better title.
For my part, I filed the notes and moved on. For a while I thought I'd lost them, but then earlier this year they turned up on the hard disk of an old Dell PC that I was wiping before passing it on. Thanks to Fox there was never any kind of a deal, so the copyright's still mine.
I'm happy for it to see the light of day now. There's some nice stuff in there. Who knows how it might have developed?"
Go to the Articles menu or click here to go straight to the outline.Support the campaign against the cancellation of FARSCAPE at SaveFarscape.com.
The BBC Cumbria website has a section devoted to films and stories shot or set in the region. There will shortly be a page of text and images about the TV version of CHIMERA which, although it was shot largely in locations away from the county, was originally set in the Ullswater/Martindale area.
So at last, Chad gets to join Postman Pat.
Click here to go to the Cumbria on Film page.
(Emer Gillespie, who played Alison Wells in the Anglia TV production, is now a noted crime novelist and the author of VIRTUAL STRANGER and FIVE DEAD MEN)
GALLAGHER'S DRACULA FOR THE BBC
Stephen Gallagher is developing a new adaptation of Bram Stoker's classic genre novel for BBC television, and will serve as Executive Producer on the show.
"DRACULA is a much-handled piece of goods. The challenge is to make it feel newly-minted for today's audience."
In 1978 the BBC produced a three-hour adaptation of the novel under the title COUNT DRACULA. Adapted by Gerald Savory and directed by Philip Saville, it was run in a single evening as a piece of 'event' television. It's considered by many to be the definitive version of its era, and perhaps the only adaptation ever to honour the text rather than plunder it.
COUNT DRACULA was thought wiped, was rediscovered and has now been released on DVD. And while the drama lives up to every claim that's been made for it, the fact remains that, like the Peter Cushing HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES on the same special-interest label, it's now archive material.
The script is being developed by Deep Indigo Productions for the BBC. Producer Archie Tait has previously worked with Stephen Gallagher on CHIMERA (1990). Deep Indigo was responsible for the recent adaptation of Anthony Trollope's THE WAY WE LIVE NOW, which starred David Suchet.
RIP TIDE
Stephen Gallagher has written a 1,000-word introduction to Louise Cooper's Cornish-backdrop Doctor Who novella. Scheduled for January publication by Telos Publishing, the book also features artwork by Fred Gambino and will be available in standard and deluxe signed editions.
OKTOBER ON DVD?
BEN DOUGLAS writes from South Queensferry: "I have been waiting and waiting (as I suspect have many others) for Oktober to come out on DVD (or VHS!). I really enjoyed the excellent series, and would love to see it again. Definitely one of the best and most atmospheric TV programmes I have seen. Unfortunately I note from your News page that there is still no word of it being released. Is there anyone I can write to about this?"
SG: Last time I raised this with Carnival I was told that the tape and DVD rights were being handled by a sales agency, but there was no sign of any actual sale. Carnival made the show but LWT underwrote it, with the ITV Network Centre providing funding through a license to broadcast. All of which makes the rights situation hard to untangle; the person I spoke to wasn't even sure which company the sales agency was working for.
I'd love to see a DVD release myself, not least because it would be an opportunity to see the show in full anamorphic widescreen. It was shot on Super 16 in the 16 X 9 format, but was broadcast in that compromised 14 X 9 ratio that pleases nobody - whether you've a standard TV or a widescreen model, it's guaranteed to fit neither. The one and only time I've seen the picture as DP Bruce McGowan intended it was on the day of the telecine transfer.
I'm trying to track down more information on this. My guess is that as far as pushing the DVD rights is concerned, Oktober is just a title on the sales agent's list... nobody's baby, getting no special attention. Other mainstream/genre shows from around the same time, like Invasion: Earth and Joe Ahearne's excellent Ultraviolet, have seen exemplary releases.
With no corporate muscle behind it, my guess is that the show's best chance of a decent release would be if one of the more committed and creative distributors like Anchor Bay or Contender Entertainment was moved to take an interest. Extras aren't really an issue - it's mainly a matter of ensuring a good transfer of the full three hours in the proper format (there was a so-called 'telemovie cut' for international sales that ran under two hours).
Send your comments and queries for this site to webmaster@stephengallagher.com. See the Contacts page for further details.
