Viking Beheadings
It turns out that this may have been the grave for an elite Viking killing force of mercenaries:
It was a deliberate execution and decapitation only of men of fighting age, and most interestingly for Dr. Baillie, these men weren’t decapitated by a blade to the back of the neck. They were decapitated from the front, just like the captured warriors in the Saga of the Jomsvikings, an Icelandic saga about a quasi-legendary fighting force of Viking mercenaries who were reputedly the fiercest of all Viking warriors.
Read the rest. Fascinating and grim stuff.
SFX Weekender Schedule
Just a quick update for next week’s SFX Weekender, for those of you who are going. I’ll be on a panel at 11am on the Saturday (‘What is Urban Fantasy’), along with Ben Aaranovitch, Paul Cornell, Benedict Jacka, Stacia Kane and Sam Stone; at 3pm I’ll be on the Forbidden Planet stand if anyone wants anything signed.
The full schedule is here. I’ll be around on the Friday and Saturday, so if you see me and want a chat, come and say hello. It’s a very informal event.
Temple for Atheists
I tweeted this earlier:
Plans to build a £1m “temple for atheists” among the international banks and medieval church spires of the City of London have sparked a clash between two of Britain’s most prominent non-believers.
The philosopher and writer Alain de Botton is proposing to build a 46-metre (151ft) tower to celebrate a “new atheism” as an antidote to what he describes as Professor Richard Dawkins’s “aggressive” and “destructive” approach to non-belief.
Rather than attack religion, De Botton said he wants to borrow the idea of awe-inspiring buildings that give people a better sense of perspective on life.
I found the backlash against it rather strange and misguided, because I think at heart it’s such a wonderful idea.
Put aside what one thinks atheists should or should not believe (a rather ironic debate, I find); and, put aside the word ‘temple’, which I think most atheists seemed to get upset about. What a great structure – something with purpose: to focus a sense of awe of the world and one’s place in it (where otherwise that might be forgotten easily), or to a sentiment such as love, while still adhering to our current understanding of physics or evolution (even though science and religious faith are not mutually exclusive anyway). It’s a union of science and the artistic soul, and does not force these ideas upon others.
I think we might also put aside the ‘oh but money can be better spent elsewhere’ argument, too – the temple will not be built with our taxes, and besides, that attitude can be applied to most things in our lives. If only we all spent our money (or even banked our money) in such profound ways… Finally, if you don’t like it, you don’t have to enter it.
De Botton said he chose the country’s financial centre because he believes it is where people have most seriously lost perspective on life’s priorities… This is a more constructive atheism than Dawkins, who is about the destruction of ideas rather than contributing new ones.
Is that so bad, to encourage people to look at life in a different way?
Traverwood Library
Another day, another beautiful library. I’m becoming obsessed with them – maybe because I have nothing nearby (which isn’t private) that I can enjoy quite as much.
I wonder if the locals know how lucky they are to have such a beautiful place to read. I don’t know about you, but the more impressive a building, the more jaw-dropping the design, the more I suspect people will use the place – that the environment itself encourages interaction with literature of all kinds. This is a bold, sweeping statement, of course. But I like to think I’m onto something.
The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore
Inspired, in equal measures, by Hurricane Katrina, Buster Keaton, The Wizard of Oz, and a love for books, “Morris Lessmore” is a story of people who devote their lives to books and books who return the favor. Morris Lessmore is a poignant, humorous allegory about the curative powers of story.
It’s also been nominated for an Oscar.
By Pavel Svedomsky. Hell hath no Sailing to Byzantium – W.B. Yeats
That is no country for old men. The young
In one another’s arms, birds in the trees
- Those dying generations – at their song,
The salmon-falls, the mackerel-crowded seas,
Fish, flesh, or fowl, commend all summer long
Whatever is begotten, born, and dies.
Caught in that sensual music all neglect
Monuments of unageing intellect.
An aged man is but a paltry thing,
A tattered coat upon a stick, unless
Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing
For every tatter in its mortal dress,
Nor is there singing school but studying
Monuments of its own magnificence;
And therefore I have sailed the seas and come
To the holy city of Byzantium.
O sages standing in God’s holy fire
As in the gold mosaic of a wall,
Come from the holy fire, perne in a gyre,
And be the singing-masters of my soul.
Consume my heart away; sick with desire
And fastened to a dying animal
It knows not what it is; and gather me
Into the artifice of eternity.
Once out of nature I shall never take
My bodily form from any natural thing,
But such a form as Grecian goldsmiths make
Of hammered gold and gold enamelling
To keep a drowsy Emperor awake;
Or set upon a golden bough to sing
To lords and ladies of Byzantium
Of what is past, or passing, or to come.
On the lack of advice
Going back to the wisdom of Nick Mamatas, something else lingered in my mind:
Even writers—especially the newer ones who give advice so freely—like to fall back on something they’re already good at when giving advice.
Reading Nick’s post was rather liberating. When I got my book deal, a few years ago, I started with the advice. I’m as guilty as those new writers Nick pointed out in his post. There’s some strange psychology about getting a book deal where you suddenly become an expert. Maybe not so much an expert, but people want to know your story of success, and you feel the temptation to share your secrets, and before you know it, down the line, you’re on the social media merry-go-round.
There’s an old analogy about Britain and the European Union, that it’s better to be on the train pissing out, than running alongside on the platform trying to piss in – and sometimes I feel that’s what blogging about publishing and writing is like. There’s this perception you’re better off sharing advice and talking about writing, or the publishing process, in order to increase your profile – that it’s the bare minimum to survive.
But the more books I write, the less I feel inclined to talk about the writing process. If I have something to say about the subject, I like to think I’ll try to say it in my books and see if it works. If not, I’ll fail better the next time. Maybe it’s a rite of passage, I don’t know, and I certainly don’t want to give the impression I’m strictly against people giving advice. There is a strange perception that publishing is a bit like the Freemasons, and I can understand why people seek out expertise to help them with their own writing.
Instead I tend to think there’s more inspiration to be found in a profoundly moving piece of art than yet another article about worldbuilding or writing battle scenes. Which isn’t to say I won’t say anything about the process in future, of course, but that for now it just doesn’t feel right for me to do so.
And doesn’t it feel better, in your own writing, to try and capture something that can’t be fired out in a blog post?
Or is this all still writing advice?
Turning Tidal
Given the massive newspaper and corporate campaign to make wind power more unpopular (which isn’t working), it’s worth also looking at what else fills the renewable energy portfolio.
I’m starting to think that if people don’t want a wind farm to spoil their view, and neither do they want a nuclear or coal power station in their back garden either, then those houses should not be allowed to have electricity. But that’s the snarky old man in me speaking.
Nick Mamatas on Advice Writers Should Stop Giving Aspiring Writers
Show Don’t Tell – Fuck you. Is this bit of advice really so precious that everyone has to say it over and over? Like pretty much any three-word utterance it is oversimplified to the point of inaccuracy.
Now read the rest. He speaks the truth.