All Hallow's Read

All Hallow's Read by =phantoms-siren on deviantART

It's October! Time for All Hallow's Read! For more information on All Hallow's Read please go to - http://www.allhallowsread.com/

Available as a shirt without the moon text on RedBubble.

Nico Murray: Interview With The Author

Nico Murray has just published her first novel and novella, and I was lucky enough to design the cover for the latter. You can meet her at the BinarySoul chainmail booth in the Dealer Hall at Dragon*Con in Atlanta, GA USA over the Labor Day weekend (August 31 - September 3, 2012). In the meantime here's a short interview with details of the books.

Can you tell us a little about yourself?

I live in Toronto, Canada, with my husband, and my strange little dog. When I'm not crafting strange tales, I work as a goldsmith by trade, while finding many ways to indulge in vodka, coffee and cupcakes.

So, what's the deal with this series?

That's a tricky question. I love vampires, and it's an idea that percolated in my head for a long time.

What I wanted, and found wanting in the great heap of vampires in media was a character who was relatively angst free, and perhaps average, not powerful, rich, or angry. Someone who was going to live life on his own terms. Or his unlife, as it might be. I also wanted vampires who accepted blood drinking, and that the mortals in their life were not just food, but a connection to their own humanity. The Council that Sascha answers to is largely hands off save for big matters.

The series will go from Sascha getting his freedom, but getting saddled with a huge responsibility, but also his own research lab, to have a chance to make things right for the people who need it, while protecting his own people and dealing with the risks of modern society when it comes in the front door.I have vague ideas for books beyond 2, and largely it tends to depend on what unfolds in book 2. Turning Night revealed twists to me that I could not have ever planned. Trying to avoid being spoilery here!

Is the novella Bound Lilies different to the main novel Turning Night?
The novellas are planned as a sort of side-story to the novels, a chance to get behind the scenes, or behind closed doors, or into secondary characters stories where they might not fill a novel entirely. The first novella was created out of a bit of joking between Asher and James, and suddenly I felt I was watching these two getting up to a bit of fun. I liked the play between them, and what was a one off short story just rolled out into this interesting little tale.

The novella also presents a kink/bdsm relationship in a different light. I'm not fond of the standard "Dominant Man/Naive Girl" thing, I wanted characters who knew what they were getting into, and delving into what I think is the pull of kink to some degree, the psychological stuff, catharsis, confronting one's boundaries, but done in a respectful, balanced and equitable way between the dominant and submissive. I mean, you can't have one without the other.

I have some ideas for novella 2, but it likely won't be quite so...graphic. I have no shame writing sex scenes, I think the aversion to that, but a general acceptance of all manner of full on violence seems odd to me. I also presented most of the immortals as somewhat fluid in sexual orientation, the joke being "you're warm, you're squishy, you're consenting? good enough." I sort of pictured that after 200 years you'd be pretty much down with whatever happened to stumble in to your arms.

So that's where its at.

Where can we buy the books?

Paper books at Createspace -
Bound Lilies ($10)
Turning Night ($15)

Paper books at Amazon -
Bound Lilies ($10)
Turning Night ($15)

One of the differences between Createspace (an Amazon company) and Amazon is that shipping from Createspace is not a very friendly option for those overseas. The localized Amazon flavour is likely your best bet if you’re quoted high prices for delivery.

eBook exclusively at Amazon’s Kindle shop
Bound Lilies ($3.99)
Turning Night ($5.99)

Where else can we find you online?

I have a tumblr where I post my own pics I take for novel ideas, and random flotsam and jetsam related to the writing at nicovamp.tumblr.com (occasionally NSFW) and my author page at nicomurray.ca.

You can also find the artists who created the Turning Night artwork here- MANDEM Mythpunk Art Noir.

Wordless Reading Wednesday

Books by =phantoms-siren on deviantART

Zombies, Run! Playlists!

I'm a huge fan of Zombies, Run! (see fanart here for proof). It's life changing. I'd never willingly run any where without a reason before I got this game. Ok, so I still don't run a great deal even now, I'm usually at a fast walk, but I am getting better and faster.

Due to chronic pain exercise is not fun for me. Will never been fun for me. It hurts. It will always hurt. This game is great for distracting from the pain, but when it comes to the music I have a dilemma. I have a very strong sense memory when it comes to music, so if I listen to songs I love when exercising I can't listen to them at other times because my brain makes me feel pain. An example would be when I broke my ankle at a Gary Numan show so now I can't listen to his 'Jagged' album any more.

So I ended up putting together these two playlists of stuff I like but don't listen to any more. I swear my musical tastes aren't really stalled in 2005!!

Rock Mix

• Links 2 3 4 - Rammstein


• Don't Stop Me Now - Queen


• Welcome To The Jungle - Guns N Roses


• Dragula - Rob Zombie


• Du Hast - Rammstein


• Edgecrusher - Fear Factory


• Scum Of The Earth - Rob Zombie


• Bodies - Drowning Pool


• Disposable Teens - Marilyn Manson


• Firesoilslave - Nerve Harvest


• Living Dead Girl - Rob Zombie


• Dr Who On Holiday - Dean Grey


• Down With The Sickness - Disturbed


• Meet The Creeper - Rob Zombie


• Rock is Dead - Marilyn Manson


• Wollt Ihr Das Bett In Flammen Sehen - Rammstein


• No Time To Cry - Cradle of Filth

Goth EBM Mix

• Dead Enough For Life? - Icon Of Coil


• Weisses Fleisch - Rammstein


• Until The End Of The World - Apoptygma Berzerk


• Hemoglobin - Beborn Beton


• Tier - Rammstein


• Call The Ships To Port - Covenant


• Floorkiller - Icon Of Coil


• Derezzed - Daft Punk


• Engel - Rammstein


• Everything is Poison - Ego Likeness


• They're Coming To Take Me Away - Neuroticfish


• Shelter - Icon of Coil


• Feuer Frei! - Rammstein


• Dead Stars - Covenant


• Love Never Dies (Part 1) - Apoptygma Berzerk


• You Just Died - Icon Of Coil


• One World One Sky - Covenant


• Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This) - Eurythmics

The Ladykillers vs Chronic Pain

I'm known for my occasional bouts of fannish insanity. Once in a while I'll get it into my head to do something nuts and move heaven&earth to achieve it. I've taken solo trans-Atlantic flights to see a single gig, I've run all over Germany with like minded fans to see every gig in a tour, and I once had to rescued from Edinburgh by the very people I was following. Not all of these plans have ended well, such is the way with fandom. As my health has deteriorated in recent years my ability to do crazy things has been curtailed. The last time I went to a gig alone, I went to a Gary Numan gig with a broken rib and had to be rescued twice due to being near collapse. That calmed me down a lot and I've resisted even looking at the dates for most tours and shows since then. If it's not showing in Sheffield and I can't get someone to go with me, I'm not going to think about. Last week I broke my own rules.

We're big fans of The Thick of It in this house, and as mentioned in my last post they were recently filming the fourth season. As such I thought that Peter Capaldi's run in The Ladykillers had ended. [Some background- The Ladykillers is an adaptation of the Ealing comedy being performed in London, which is 3-4 hours from here by train. Far too far for me to consider normally.] I was good, I didn't intentionally look into it, or google the show or anything. Then a friend on Twitter retweeted that it was actually closing on Saturday and that there were some tickets on sale at a reduced price.



If you're not part of a fandom you might never have felt that creeping grip of "gotta do it, gotta do it" excitement that such news brings, but it's a bit intoxicating and, considering my health, a bit frightening. I decided to go, I was feeling better than I had in a while and it was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Then overnight my health crashed and I started to panic. I wanted to go but I couldn't go alone any more. Thankfully a dear friend was willing to join the insanity and less than 24 hours before the matinee show we had tickets and a plan.

Getting to London was the first trial, since it involved a bus and two trains, none of which I cope that well on. Sitting for long periods for me can be worse than standing and going through tunnels is horrible since I can't correct the pressure in my ears. There was the fun of getting from St Pancreas Station to Shaftesbury Avenue. I can't travel by underground any more, they give me flashbacks to 15th June 1996, so we ended up walking/limping the 2 miles from the station to the theatre, including a brief detour caused by the giant gold Freddie Mercury statue on Oxford Street. We arrived 30 minutes before the show started and managed to squeeze through the press of people to our seats. Aisle seats are great on one hand because you can actually stretch your legs out, but less great when you have to keep standing up to let people pass whilst juggling a cane, program and drinks.

On to the show itself. A lot has already been said about this elsewhere online, but the set really was amazing. A long time ago, in another life, I wanted to be a theatre designer, and I think if I'd seen this show then I wouldn't have given up on it. We were sitting too far back to see the upper left corner (which was a bit plot critical) but what we could see was brilliant. You can see pictures of it towards the bottom of this page. It was a rotating set that included the front of the house, the roof at the back, the interior split into three levels and a train tunnel. The front of the house also doubled as the set for the most ingenious car chase I've seen in years. Each time a train passed by furniture in the interior set would move around and the various methods of getting the cast around the set were very clever. The set was practically a member of the cast as it moved, changed and interacted with each in turn, plus there was the ever present 'parrot' in a cage at the front of the set, which stole the scene on several occasions.

In terms of the cast, Peter Capaldi as Professor Marcus was the reason I wanted to go, but the entire ensemble was amazing. Sherlock's Stephen Wight was brilliant as the drug-addled Harry and had some fantastically well timed moments of slapstick comedy. James Fleet was adorable and charming as Major Countney. The big surprise for me was Ben Miller. I've always been a fan of the Armstrong and Miller Show, and I stuck with Primeval because he was so good as James Lester, but his performance as the psychotic Romanian with an irrational fear of little old ladies was spot on. In terms of skill Marcia Warren's portrayal of Mrs Wilberforce was a lesson in itself, maintaining the stooped and shuffling movements of an elderly person whilst managing half of a slapstick routine clearly took a huge amount of work.

One of the major themes of the physical comedy was that Mrs Wilberforce was constantly standing on Professor Marcus' scarf, and we heard some people complaining during interval that some of those moments looked a little bit forced. I've study acting, and the friend that was with me is a drama degree student, and the concentration necessary to hit a mark, get lines right, step on a moving strip of fabric that you CANNOT LOOK AT and not accidentally kill your co-star, is extraordinary. There are going to be occasions when one actor or another has to make an adjustment for the performance to continue to flow and if it's something tied around one actors neck, you have to be a bit careful with it. Seriously, if you're going to complain about tiny things like that in a live show, then go home and watch TV where they can do a hundred takes, that you don't have to see, to get it right.

Peter Capaldi's performance as Professor Marcus was definitely the highlight of the show. It was big, it was bold, it was just this side of camp and it perfectly mixed genuinely creepy with disarmingly charming. Great characterisation and attention to detail, especially when it came to movement and gestures. His accent did slip once or twice (as did Ben Miller's 'Romanian' accent) but since the character is supposed to be a fraud (and Peter Capaldi sounds awesome when he's angry) it wasn't enough to distract from the scene. I was a little concerned by the shots online where Peter's hair was slicked back in a very creepy fashion, but since he has had it cut for the new The Thick of It series, it looked much better. The character's faux horror film entrance was a brilliant sequence that had the audience laughing without a word being spoken, and the final fight between Marcus and Louis (Ben Miller) was a perfect showcase for both actors dramatic skills.

Overall the best non-musical comedy I've seen in a decade, two and a half hours of solid laughter, thrills, spills, robbery and murder. As I mentioned before the show closed on Saturday, but if you ever see a production being staged near you I urge you to go and see it.

After the show we went to the stage door in the hope of getting some autographs. First up we met the lovely James Fleet, who was charming, and got a bit flustered by my silver pen (a hold over from attending years of goth gigs where all merchandising is black). Then Ben Miller came out and was very sweet, also confused by the pen of doom and let us pose for photos with him. Unfortunately I was shaking really badly due to lack of food and pain meds (both of which I had to forgo in order to actually manage to survive the day), that's why I'm blurry but he isn't. I missed Stephen Wight due to being pushed by a really annoying autograph tout (who constantly asked if people 'were cast' and ended up with signatures from a lot of stage hands). After an hour waiting in the cold we had to admit that no one else would be coming out and head home.

One of the major issues with having a chronic condition is the long term effect of your actions. You can tell people that something will hurt or that it'll exhaust you but unless you've lived with it, or with a loved one who has it, the true effects can be hard to explain. We got home 15 hours after we left, having walked four miles across London and back, spent seven hours on trains and buses, stood in the cold for two hours and laughed in an over heated room for two and half hours. In that time I was unable to eat anything substantial (two biscuits) or take any of my pain medication. To paraphrase Robert Downey Junior's Sherlock Holmes - in summary: back spasming; left shoulder, hand & hip dislocated; right hand swollen due to cane use; broken rib bruised by laughing too much. Physical recovery: 6 weeks. Full psychological recovery: 6 months. Ability to function as a human being: neutralised.

Was it worth it? Yes. Would I do it again any time soon? No. But then I said that after the Gary Numan debacle. *shrug*

Snow Day!

Yesterday the UK was braced for snowmageddon, or possibly the snowpocalypse. I think we're all still traumatised by the snow back in November 2010, when it was really deep and the councils had no grit or plan to deal with said snow. I like that the photos on Wikipedia for that winter are from Sheffield, where the panic was worst due to the hills and the heavy snow on the peaks.

So when we were told there was a 100% chance of snow yesterday we did what the British do so well- went to buy bread and milk. I don't really know why we do that, though back in 2010 the supermarker closest to the M1 (which was closed) did run out of both, OMG! I actually bought chocolate milk, cos it's better than plain and anyway, I don't drink tea :p

The first hour was pretty disappointing.


It picked up a bit later, but didn't get much past this by nightfall.



Fortunately we got enough overnight to make everything pretty but light enough that it isn'gt going to cause the complete breakdown of civilisation.



So we went for a walk in the park.









We have a labyrinth in the park. Not sure why. But it's awesome.





And the wisdom at the centre of the labyrinth? The secret you learn once you've face dangers untold and hardships unnumbered?



Classy.

The pond is partially frozen, and our neighbour cat is a foolhardy idiot.







Cute little paws though.

Easiest Indian Recipe Ever

I think I've mentioned our households love for all things Madhur Jaffrey. One of the first cookery books we got as a couple was her "Invitation to Indian Cooking", it was originally published in 1976 but our edition is from 2003. It's from that strange era when cookery books weren't full of colour photos and you basically had to guess what your dish was going to turn out like.

Our approach to Indian style cooking has always been to take the original recipe as a guide, often Madhur Jaffrey's recipes aren't spicy enough for our tastes, or the selection of spices too complicated for every day cooking. We only cook Rogan Josh on special occasions when we have time to stick to the recipe, but this is more of an every day dish, so we've simplified it. Takes about 30 minutes, though the longer it simmers the tastier it will become.

Streamlined Kheema (feeds 6)

One large onion, finely chopped
3 cloves garlic
500 grams mince/ground beef or lamb
1/2 tsp chili (or more)
glug of lemon juice
200 grams frozen peas
1 1/2 tsp garam masala
Water

1. fry off the onion and garlic in a small amount of oil (or ghee if you're feeling fancy).
2. Once the onion is translucent add the meat and fry until browned.
3. Add the chili and lemon juice then stir to combine.
4. Add the peas and and garam masala.
5. Stir until the peas are no longer frozen, then add water until the meat is covered.
6. Bring to a simmer and then cover.
7. Cook for 15 minutes to an hour.
8. Serve with your favorite rice dish and a pitta bread or naan.

You can add other vegetables and spices to suit your tastes. Not all store bought garam masala mixes are equal, we've found one we really like, and we're happy to use it in place of making one at home. I'd recommend checking your local Asian supermarket for good brands, it's usually cheaper than buying all the spices individually.

This is a great meal for those who aren't that familiar with Indian flavours as it isn't too strong. It's also super yummy used in place of your usual cottage pie meat mix.