Favourite Closing Lines

Posted on July 31, 2020 by simondillon

In the past, I’ve written about my favourite opening lines in novels. Here then are ten of my favourite closing lines. I am wary of potential spoilers, so will skirt around the subject as best I can in commenting on each. They are listed in no particular order of merit.

“The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.”

Animal Farm, George Orwell.

Orwell’s masterly allegorical satire/satirical allegory is brilliantly summed up in this final moment. Just as corrupt tyrannical Soviet leaders were ultimately indistinguishable from their Czarist predecessors, so the pigs are ultimately indistinguishable from man.

“He turned away to give them time to pull themselves together; and waited, allowing his eyes to rest on the trim cruiser in the distance.”

Lord of the Flies, William Golding.

Again, I’m wary of spoilers, but the dying embers of this novel have a poignancy I’ve always found moving and bitterly truthful. It hints at an all too human denial regarding the terrible reality of the adult world being just as savage as the one created by the boys on their island.

“Very few castaways can claim to have survived so long at sea as Mr. Patel, and none in the company of an adult Bengal tiger.”

Life of Pi, Yann Martel.

A neat summary of the main narrative, made all the more poignant by the developments and ambiguities of the final act.

“It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known.”

A Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens.

I often hear this quoted by people who have never read the novel, or understand what is happening in this scene. Obviously to expound on it here would be a major spoiler, suffice to say I find it the most beautifully poignant of all Dickens’s final lines (This one narrowly edged out A Christmas Carol for the Dickens slot on this list).

“In this way I am no doubt indirectly responsible for …’s death, and I cannot say that it is likely to weigh very heavily upon my conscience.”

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, The Speckled Band, Arthur Conan Doyle.

I’ve slightly censored this quote, as naming the villain of this fiendishly clever short would be incredibly cruel for anyone unfamiliar with the tale. It is also, incidentally, my all-time favourite Sherlock Holmes short story. Given what the villain is responsible for, Holmes’s attitude is both understandable and satisfying.

“So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.”

The Great Gatsby, F.Scott Fitzgerald.

One of the all-time great final lines. I like the way it perfectly sums up one of the key themes of the novel, about looking at the past with rose tinted spectacles, blindly obsessed with something that never really existed in the first place.

“But wherever they go, and whatever happens to them on the way, in that enchanted place on the top of the Forest a little boy and his Bear will always be playing.”

The House At Pooh Corner, A.A. Milne.

I swear this quote is listed in the dictionary under the definition of bittersweet. It emphasises both the melancholia of passing childhood, and also the importance of remaining in touch with one’s inner child. I’m sorry, there’s something in my eye…

“’I never saw any of them again — except the cops. No way has yet been invented to say goodbye to them.”

The Long Goodbye, Raymond Chandler.

The perfect noir thriller ending. Enough said.

“They asked for my story. I have told it. Enough.”

The Woman in Black, Susan Hill.

Throughout the novel, the narrator reopens old wounds in the process of telling his story. This final line is superbly terse, brilliantly underpinning the climax of this bone-chilling ghost story classic.

“He reached the top of the bank in a single, powerful leap. Hazel followed; and together they slipped away, running easily down through the wood, where the first primroses were beginning to bloom.”

Watership Down, Richard Adams.

Again, I’ll have to dance around spoilers a little, but when I first read this (at the age of nine), I found the context of the above passage almost unbearably moving. The blooming primrose image neatly also echoes the opening sentence (“The primroses were over”) with multi-layered resonance.

Along with The Lord of the Rings (which I also first read at a similar age), Watership Down is one of the very few books to make me cry, and seems an appropriate place to end this article.

Film Review – Togo

Posted on July 28, 2020 by simondillon

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With my local cinemas due to re-open this Friday, I sincerely hope this will be the last “watched on TV” film review written as a result of the ongoing world tour of a certain popular plague. To say I have missed cinemas would be an understatement, but more on that trauma another time. For now, let’s end the lockdown film reviews on a high note, with a summary of my thoughts on Disney’s Togo.

To be fair, Togo had always been destined for straight-to-streaming purgatory, which is a crying shame as those bleak but beautiful Alaskan landscapes really would have benefitted from a cinema screen. The film tells a fact-based man/woman-and-his/her-dog story, about the infamous emergency 1925 dog sled run to procure diphtheria medication for dying children in storm conditions. These events have been celebrated in film before, particularly in the animated film Balto, so named after one of the lead dogs involved. However, heroic though Balto’s endeavours undoubtedly were, the inconvenient truth that another sled dog, Togo, ran the bulk of the distance, has long been overlooked.

Not that screenwriter Tom Flynn and director Ericson Core’s film is merely a dull historic corrective. Rather, it is a first-rate outdoorsy adventure story of the kind that used to be a regular fixture of Disney’s live action output. The scenery is magnificent, and there are a couple of genuinely edge of the seat moments – one involving a mountain precipice, the other involving outrunning broken ice on a frozen lake. Outside of this, well deployed flashbacks flesh out the relationship between Togo and his human masters, Leonhard and Constance Seppala (Willem Dafoe and Julianne Nicholson). Constance forms an instant bond with Togo from his birth, but Leonhard is harder to win over, given Togo’s highly amusing predilection for slapstick comedy high jinks. But of course, cometh the hour cometh the dog, and Leonhard turns out to have warm heart beneath his tough guy exterior as he realises Togo’s true worth.

Performances are good, and the use of real dogs gives this film a huge edge over the recent version of The Call of the Wild (sorry, but CGI animals just aren’t as good). However, what gives the film extra resonance is the low key post sled-run coda, in its melancholy meditations on the consequences of the extraordinary heroism displayed, and the bond between man and dog. That said, there are moments of overreaching silliness (the paraphrasing of the St Crispin’s day speech in Henry V felt more spoofish than dramatic). Also, I really must call time on the use of William Richter’s On the Nature of Daylight. That music has been used so many times in films (for my money most effectively in Arrival) that it is becoming an irritating cliché. Enough now.

Those caveats aside, I definitely recommend Togo for those who enjoy films of this kind. It won’t change the course of cinema (or “streaming”, to be more accurate, though the word sticks in my throat), but it will leave you with that old-school Disney warm glow.

UK Certificate: U

US Certificate: PG

Opening lines of my novels: Do you want to read on?

Posted on July 24, 2020 by simondillon

“Never open a book with weather” is advice often given to novelists. I’m not sure where to attribute said quote, although it is the first of Elmore Leonard’s ten tips for writers. I’m not sure how seriously to take it either. I can name a few classic novels that open with weather (Jane Eyre, for instance).

At any rate, I thought I’d give you the opportunity to judge some of my novels by their opening lines as well as their covers (it’s a myth that people don’t judge books by their covers – they absolutely do, when choosing what to read).

Glancing back over these, I like some, and slightly cringe at others. For instance, I think the opening to Children of the Folded Valley – still by far my most popular novel – is a tiny bit literary fiction try-hard, and I’d probably opt for something more immediately gripping these days. Still, it establishes the melancholy tone, as protagonist James Harper looks back on his childhood growing up amid a mysterious cult.

Folded Valley cover “We spend our adult lives trying to regain what we lost in childhood.

I do not claim to be unique in that respect. Whilst it might be argued that I lost more than some, we all, I think, chase after what we once had or never had. What we lost cannot be replaced, but we chase after it nonetheless.

Some think of what they lost with romantic rose-tinted spectacles, whilst others are more pragmatic. Some deny it, others get angry about it, others still accept it and seek help from friends, family, lovers, therapists, priests, gurus or anyone else who will listen. But I cannot do that. I can never tell my friends, my colleagues, my wife or my children what happened to me in the Folded Valley.”

Children of the Folded Valley is available here (in the UK) and here (in the US).

Onto something a bit more instantly gripping, here is the opening of The Thistlewood Curse. The reader is thrown headfirst into an investigation that has ended badly, which establishes the two main characters DS Laura Buchan, and paranormal consultant Lawrence Crane.

THE THISTLEWOOD CURSE Cover (JPG Print version) “In spite of the peculiar circumstances surrounding the death of Jacob Price, Detective Sergeant Laura Buchan had all but convinced herself there was no foul play. That he died as the result of a bizarre accident had become the accepted version of events for her and most of her colleagues. Only the senior investigating officer, Detective Inspector Ethan Roland, had any further inkling that Price’s demise was in any way suspicious.

Laura kept pinching the bridge of her nose in a nervous reflex. The questioning of her lifelong friend and occasional colleague Lawrence Crane should have been mere formality; an interview that would establish beyond all doubt that he had no involvement in Price’s death. But Roland kept treating him like a criminal. No doubt he considered his actions thoroughness, but Laura thought he was just being rude. Through the two-way mirror Laura watched as Roland continued to question Crane in the interview room.

‘Are you glad he’s dead?’”

The Thistlewood Curse is available here (in the UK) and here (in the US).

Phantom Audition concerns a grieving actress whose actor husband committed suicide in mysterious circumstances. This opening goes for the emotional jugular, establishing the novel’s themes of grief and what it can do to the mind.

“What Mia noticed most was the silence.

She kept expecting to hear Steven’s voice, or the insistent thud of his feet, as he rehearsed his lines, pacing up and down. She expected to hear him on the phone to his agent, publicist, or to a director.

In the mornings, she no longer heard his absurd singing in the shower. His seat at the breakfast table stood empty. Mia would avert her eyes, unable to bear staring at the space he should occupy. He should be sipping his tea, scrolling through his phone, crunching his cereal… Silence chewed the room instead, like wind and rain gnawing an eroding landscape.

At nights, Mia would awaken and roll over, hoping to warm herself on his body. But Steven wasn’t there, and he wasn’t coming back. He had been replaced with the same terrible silence that screamed, clawed, and tore at her mind whenever she entered the rooms that still had his smell. The memory of her husband had stained the entire house.”

Phantom Audition is available here (in the UK) and here (in the US).

Onto some of my novels aimed at younger readers (and the young at heart). Here is the opening of Uncle Flynn. This treasure hunt adventure mystery concerns eleven-year old Max. His crippling panic attacks are established in the opening chapter, ahead of the introduction of his mysterious uncle, and the main narrative. Themes of overcoming fear and the dangers of mollycoddling ensue, and Max’s character arc develops in ways that are hinted at in this opening segment.

Uncle Flynn_Cover_600px “Max Bradley didn’t like to climb trees.

It wasn’t that he didn’t want to climb trees. He longed to do as his friends did and climb high into the branches of the great horse chestnut that stood at the foot of Gavin Bainbridge’s large garden. But every time he tried, he became dizzy after ascending just a few feet, and the idea of climbing higher frightened him. This was a continual frustration, since all eleven-year old boys could usually climb trees.

Max, Gavin, and Gavin’s cousins Jenny, Paul, Mark, and Katie had been playing a game of football, but Mark had kicked the ball into the upper branches of the tree. No amount of hurling sticks or stones had dislodged it, and the only way to retrieve the ball was for someone to climb up and get it.

Ordinarily, Gavin would have nipped up and retrieved it, but he was in one of his awkward, showing-off moods. He knew of Max’s fear of climbing and began to tease him.

‘Why don’t you go up and get the ball?’”

Uncle Flynn is available here (in the UK) and here (in the US).

Dr Gribbles and the Beast of Blackthorn Lodge is another action-packed children’s adventure story which well and truly throws the reader in at the deep end. Chapter one alone features a haunted house, a monster, and mad scientist.

“Being trapped inside a haunted house was turning out to be every bit as terrifying as Tim had feared. He sat on the moth-eaten hallway carpet leaning against the crumbling plaster walls, putting his hands over his ears to shut out the horrible muffled roars.

Tim desperately tried to think of a way out, but his options were limited. The front door was blocked shut, as was the back door. That left the downstairs windows, but they were boarded up; as were most of the upstairs windows, except the small bathroom window on the top floor. But getting to it would mean climbing the dusty wooden staircase and it didn’t look particularly stable…”

Dr Gribbles and the Beast of Blackthorn Lodge is available here (in the UK) and here (in the US).

Finally, here’s the opening of Echo and the White Howl. My youngest son begged me for a story about wolves, so I wrote this novel about a wolf pack in Alaska. It’s a vivid, thrilling tale of betrayal, exile, and vengeance, with a touch of the supernatural. I am particularly pleased with this one, even though writing animal fiction is way out of my “comfort zone” (if you’ll forgive my use of an obscenity) and is something I’ll almost certainly never attempt again. We join protagonist Echo and the rest of his pack during an elk hunt, establishing the bleak, unforgiving landscapes, and the main characters.

“The pack stalked the bull elk in the forest. Having successfully separated the beast from his herd, the wolves finally closed in for the kill.

Echo crouched in the snow behind a rock, a short distance above the elk, on a steep slope. He anticipated the imminent pounding thrill that would course through his veins when the attack signal came. He could practically smell the blood on the icy air. Every sense in his body tingled, and he longed to sink his teeth into the succulent flesh. But still he waited. Aatag, the Alpha and his father, would make his move soon.

The elk had spotted Aatag, some twenty yards away, lurking next to a large pine tree. Aatag no longer hid himself but stared down his prey, attempting to both intimidate and distract the elk from the danger at either side. To the right, Echo and his brothers Malakai and Puyak, both of whom lurked behind trees, waited high on the slope. To the left, Echo’s mother Kiana remained concealed in the undergrowth with Copper, Aatag’s fiercely dutiful second-in-command, as well as sly and clever Imalik.

Presently Puyak broke his cover and trotted across to Echo. Irritated at his brother’s impatience, Echo cocked his head, indicating for him to get back under cover. But Puyak disregarded this and eventually shuffled up next to Echo.

‘This is getting boring,’ said Puyak. ‘Why can’t we just attack?’”

Echo and the White Howl is available here (in the UK) and here (in the US).

Film Review – Artemis Fowl

Posted on July 18, 2020 by simondillon

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Dear Disney Studio Executives,

I’m writing this review as an opportunity to remind you exactly how this adaptation thing works, as you seem to have forgotten. The rules are very simple: either stick to the essence of the novel and what made us fall in love with it in the first place, or – if you really want to try for the hard six – replace it with something just as good. I know you are capable of this, as in the past you have done both with excellent results (20,000 Leagues under the Sea being an example of the former, and Mary Poppins being an example of the latter). What you absolutely cannot do under any circumstances, is replace the source material with something bland, toothless, generic, and utterly uninspiring. With Artemis Fowl, you have well and truly rolled a snake-eyes.

Your first mistake was trying to adapt the first two books, and thus shoehorn in characters and situations that don’t appear until later. Why didn’t you just stick to the first? The dangerous antics of rich Irish twelve-year old criminal genius Artemis Fowl, and his agreeably lethal bodyguard Butler, have great cinematic potential. Their plan to capture a fairy – in this case, Holly Short from the lower elements police reconnaissance division (LEP RECON, see what author Eoin Colfer did there?) – leads to an inspired, Die Hard style siege. The fairies prove to be technologically superior, armed to the teeth, and deadly. A colourful cast of supporting magical characters, including flatulent kleptomaniac dwarf Mulch Diggums, tech genius centaur Foaly, and a rampaging troll, just add to the witty, action-packed fun.

It would be all too easy to blame director Kenneth Branagh for this mess, but given his track record and obvious talent, I suspect he found he was in over his head, and did all he could to make the best of a bad situation, as you interfered at every turn. Your determination to eliminate all dark edges and thereby the essence of Artemis Fowl – his self-reliance, status as a master criminal, and so on – is depressingly evident from the overstuffed screenplay. All the interesting character dynamics, including the antagonism between Holly and Artemis – an essential component of this first adventure – are watered down to the point of utter indifference.

Likewise, it would be foolish to lay too much blame on the shoulders of Ferdia Shaw, Lara McDonnell, or Nonso Anozie (as Artemis, Holly Short, and Butler respectively), given the material they had to work with. Or the fact that they are simply swamped by increasingly numbing, weightless CGI. Even the big names in the supporting cast – including an underused Colin Farrell as Artemis’s father, and an amusingly deadpan Judi Dench as gender switched LEP RECON Commander Root – fail to make any kind of impact. Josh Gad’s narration (as Mulch Diggums) is equally uninspired, providing neither witty counterpoint nor clarity, but rather confusion and a pointless framing device.

No, in this case, I place the blame fully and completely on you; the timid, unimaginative, risk-adverse, bean-counting, machine-tooling overlords at Disney. Not so much Artemis Fowl as Artemis Foul, this time you utterly blew it. Eoin Colfer deserved better.

Yours Sincerely

The Audience

UK Certificate: PG

US Certificate: PG

Cinematic Window Shopping: My Love Affair with Film Trailers

Posted on July 17, 2020 by simondillon

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I first recall a film trailer having significant impact on me in the autumn of 1984. My father took me to a re-release of 101 Dalmatians, at what was then the ABC Magdalen Street, Oxford – a lovely Art-Deco one-screen cinema. The lights dimmed, the curtain rose, and following the supporting cartoon shorts, the trailers began. Some of these intrigued me (especially Beverly Hills Cop, which looked hilarious), but then the trailer for Dune came on, and everything changed.

The imagery from David Lynch’s notorious science fiction flop captivated my imagination. Ravishing production design, leather costumes, giant sandworms, Sting’s red hair and codpiece… These visual delights flashed past my eyes in an epic three minute plus trailer, replete with voiceover man telling me I was “about to enter a world where the unexpected, the unknown, and the unbelievable meet”. I spent those three minutes desperately wanting to see the entire film. A part of me even believed for a fleeting second that the full film would follow the trailer, as it had promised I was “about to” enter this strange and surreal world.

During my childhood and teenage years, trailers were an integral part of the cinema experience. At a time when trailer reels were less machine-tooled to compliment the accompanying feature, they often proved hugely exciting and subversive. Today, a re-release of 101 Dalmatians wouldn’t feature trailers for films like Beverly Hills Cop or Dune, but in those halcyon days, a trip to the cinema meant an illicit glimpse into thrillingly dangerous world of grown-up feature film entertainment.

A year or two later, I went to the cinema with a friend and his father. The occasion is burned into my memory for one simple reason: the trailer for Jagged Edge. Oozing frightening atmosphere, the moment voiceover man announced “A crime so violent, a murder so well planned…” I was on the edge of my seat. This taboo peek into a dark and definitely unsuitable 18-certificate film deeply scandalised my friend’s father, who remarked that a trailer like that “had no business being shown before a children’s film” (whatever that film might have been, I’ve long since forgotten).

Throughout my teenage years and early twenties, I was thrilled by many a trailer. Some of the features they promoted ultimately proved disappointing; I didn’t much care for Independence Day, despite an astonishingly exciting teaser with the exploding White House. Others did not disappoint; I went to many films in the summer of 1991, purely for repeat viewings of the Terminator 2: Judgment Day trailer. When I finally saw the film, it more than lived up to the hype.

Most of the time, trailers could only be seen in full at the cinema. However, something curious happened in the mid-1990s: The Internet. The first trailer I saw online was for Goldeneye. Although intrigued, something bothered me about seeing the trailer for the first James Bond film in six years on such a small computer screen. To paraphrase Alfredo the projectionist in Cinema Paradiso when confronted with the advent of television, it didn’t feel right, didn’t smell right. Seeing trailer this way seemed too easy, and too small.

A few years later, when the teaser for Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace broke download records, a significant milestone had been reached. Trailers were no longer an appetiser exclusive to the cinematic experience, but a marketing tool primarily aimed at online viewers. The last twenty years have cemented this truth, to the point that trailers have become devalued because they are so ubiquitous.

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If one director understands this, it is Christopher Nolan. His first trailer for Tenet (due out on 12th August, Covid permitting) was shown exclusively in cinemas. Seeing this teaser in the cinema took me back to those thrilling pre-internet days, and got me thinking. Surely a good marketing strategy would be to give trailers a theatrical release window, much like feature films. If a film trailer plays in cinemas for a month or two first, it could then get an online release afterwards. It could prove especially attractive to cinema punters if said trailers were particularly creative in some way, or contained exclusive material.

Many of my favourite trailers have featured material that doesn’t appear in the final cut, but are mini-marketing masterpieces. The teaser trailer for The Incredibles featured a hilarious scene with an overweight Mr Incredible trying to put on his costume. The trailer for Monty Python and the Holy Grail is a hilarious sketch in its own right, with a producer auditioning various unsuitable voiceover artists. Of course, some great trailers have featured material that gets cut for more tragic reasons. The first teaser for Spider-man involves a stunning sequence with bank robbers making their getaway in a helicopter that gets caught in a gigantic web between the World Trade Centre towers. It remains one of the great teaser trailers, and I wish Columbia had been brave enough to include it on the DVD and Blu Ray extra features.

I still have a major soft spot for the classic Psycho trailer, where Hitchcock shows the audience around the Bates house and motel, dropping cryptic clues as to what took place there. (“You should have seen the blood…”) It’s an absolute masterclass in hooking and intriguing an audience, without really spoiling anything. There isn’t a single frame from the actual film in the trailer either, not even that final shot of Vera Miles screaming (it is Janet Leigh who meets the wrong end of a knife in that famous scene, not Vera Miles – a cunning bit of misdirection).

As with the Psycho teaser, great trailers know the importance of communicating the tone without spoiling the film. The original trailer for Alien is another fine example. No voiceover, no dialogue, no spoiler shots of xenomorphs, just a genuinely disturbing montage of sounds and images perfectly conveying the atmosphere of a horror classic.

Then there are behind the scenes trailers. Some of the best examples include the teaser for Sleeper, where Woody Allen is hilariously deadpan in his editing room interview (“There’s very little overt comedy in the film”). The interviews with Steven Spielberg in the Close Encounters of the Third Kind trailer are appropriately more mysterious and enigmatic.

With the financial damage Covid 19 has dealt to cinemas and film studios, not to mention the increasingly blurred lines between big and small screen release windows, some are predicting the demise of big screen entertainment. I still have faith cinema will see off these challenges, just as they adapted when television became a threat in the 1950s, and VHS became a threat in the 1980s. Perhaps cinemas and filmmakers are already rising to the challenge, with the kinds of exclusive extras I’ve discussed in this article.

Warner Brothers are planning a tenth anniversary re-release for Nolan’s Inception, in the run-up to Tenet’s new release date. It is reported the film will be accompanied by a sneak peek at Tenet, along with an exclusive reel featuring unseen footage of other upcoming Warner releases, including Wonder Woman 1984, Godzilla versus Kong, and – most intriguingly – Denis Villeneuve’s take on Dune. I find it amusing and ironic that the prospect of glimpsing a new vision of Frank Herbert’s science fiction masterpiece should lure me back to the big screen, bringing my love affair with trailers full circle.

Film Review – Lynn + Lucy

Posted on July 15, 2020 by simondillon

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Writer/director Fyzal Boulifa’s Lynn + Lucy is a superbly acted and directed drama about a disintegrating friendship, and a timely parable about the mob mentality.

Lynn (Roxanne Scrimshaw) and Lucy (Nichola Burley) have been best friends since the age of eleven, and now live opposite one another in Harlow, Essex. Lynn married her first boyfriend after getting pregnant as a teenager, and now has a ten-year old daughter. Lucy has recently had a baby, and is the more erratic of the pair (as seen on a night out early in the film). She struggles with motherhood, but Lynn is on hand to help her out, amid complications from Lucy’s feckless boyfriend. As for Lynn, after ten years of being a full-time mother, she gets a job at a local hair salon, working for a woman who was unpleasant to her at school.

At first, the bond between Lynn and Lucy seems solid, but then a horrifying incident unsettles everything. When blame begins to fall at Lucy’s door, Lynn’s loyalties are put to the test, as she faces a number of moral dilemmas.

Shooting in Academy aspect ratio, Boulifa’s framings allow for an intense, immersive Loachian sojourn into an incident that brings out the worst in its working-class community. At the same time, the parallels with human nature in general are all too depressingly believable. What most struck me was Lynn’s passivity, and the way she is swept along with the eddies and currents of fickle, ill-informed, gossiping colleagues. She has a particularly interesting character arc, in that our initial sympathy with her predicament eventually gives way to an alarmingly unsparing depiction of cowardice trumping conscience, presenting us with the uncomfortable truth that we are all too often ready to rush to judgement.

In short, Lynn + Lucy isn’t one to watch if you’re in the mood for car chases and explosions, but as a scathing study of mob culture, it gets under the skin and lingers in the mind. I’d definitely recommend it.

UK Certificate: 15

US Certificate: Not yet rated, but would almost certainly get an R.

Content warnings: Very strong language, upsetting scenes.

Gothic Mystery Podcast Interviews

Posted on July 10, 2020 by simondillon

The release of my last three gothic mystery novels – Spectre of Springwell Forest, The Irresistible Summons, and Phantom Audition – were each accompanied by a podcast interview with yours truly, conducted by the excellent Samantha Stephen – my co-host on The Tangent Tree podcast.

Throughout the three interviews, Samantha grills me on a variety of subjects in her inimitable manner, on everything from influences and twist endings, to why I have a thing for tenacious imperilled heroines creeping around haunted houses, spooky labyrinths, and other don’t-go-there places.

They aren’t too long, so why not head over to the Dragon Soul Press website and have a listen here.

Film Review – The Assistant

Posted on July 5, 2020 by simondillon

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Today I finally caught up with The Assistant, a low-key observational drama featuring a first-rate central performance from Julia Garner as Jane, the eponymous assistant to a famous film mogul.

Said mogul is very effectively kept off-screen for the duration, though we occasionally overhear angry meetings or his furious calls, whenever he feels the need to lash out. The minutiae of Jane’s daily grind will feel familiar to anyone who has worked in the thankless role of executive assistant. Her long hours in the office are an unending blur of photocopiers, coffee machines, phone calls, furtive meals grabbed in spare seconds, and other tasks that fall well outside the parameters of her job description (including babysitting and vacuum cleaner maintenance). At the same time, she has to cover up for her boss in a way that often puts her in impossible situations – for example, when his wife calls demanding to know where he is, whilst he is “Weinsteining” the wet-behind-the-ears young woman from Idaho with no experience, that he decided to randomly hire.

Writer/director Kitty Green infuses the drama with slow-burning realism. The film industry is depicted as not remotely glamorous, and much of the gradually building despair is derived from the continuous minor acts of bullying, sexism, abuse, and humiliation. One particular incident involving a head of HR (deftly played by Matthew McFadden) who is anything but trustworthy, makes the #MeToo case with subtle but squirm-inducing believablity.

What The Assistant does best – brilliantly and depressingly – is peel back the layers behind the Weinsteins of this world. Much of what his ilk got away with (and doubtless continue to get away with) is enabled by lower level staff, who instinctively know that silent compliance is the best way to get ahead, especially when they have (unreliable) assurances they are being mentored for greater things. We are meant to feel sorry for Jane, no question. But in her own way, and despite her best intentions and crises of conscience, ultimately she is complicit.

The film certainly won’t be for everyone , but it is thought provoking, and astutely achieves what it set out to do, and as such I certainly recommend it.

UK Certificate: 15

US Certificate: R

Content warnings: Strong language.

Tempus, Time Travel, and Tall Tales: An interview with Claus Holm

Posted on July 3, 2020 by simondillon

From time to time, I interview other authors on this blog whose work I admire. Claus Holm’s Tempus series gripped and thrilled me, so naturally I sought him out for the Dillon Inquisition. Now he must answer for keeping me up at night, desperately wanting to know what happens next…

Please give a short overview of the Tempus series.

Tempus Investigations is a supernatural detective agency in San Francisco run by Jim Corrigan; a 1930’s cop with a bad case of immortality. He doesn’t age, any damage to his body heals, and he can see and communicate with the spirits of the dead.

As such, he helps both the San Francisco PD and private clients when the supernatural comes knocking at the door. His friends and co-workers all contribute to the case solving in various ways; some with superpowers, others with investigative skills, tech knowledge, or pure heart.

Over the course of the series are everything from psychotic angels to time travel, Native American totems in human form, and real-life serial killer The Zodiac. The books are written to read like a Netflix-show, in terms of style and narrative. There are three in the series, with book three being published in 2020.

How did you come up with the character of Jim Corrigan?

By mixing traits from myself with some of my favorite fictional heroes. There’s a bit of Conner MacLeod from Highlander, a bit of Fox Mulder from The X-Files, a bit of the private detective Philip Marlowe, and a bit of Captain Malcolm Reynolds from Firefly all mixed together with myself and my own wishes (well – hopes!) for how I would act and talk if I was in situations like this.

I originally came up with him as a character for a role-playing game, but he changed a lot. He’s a lot nicer in the books. I found the concept I originally had of a completely unchanging man for over a century just didn’t work. He had to want to change, but he needed someone to pull him into the modern world and ground him. Which is, I suppose, the one story-line that runs through all three books – his growth as a character and as a person.

Jim is a slightly difficult man. He has very set opinions and he’s stubborn as hell, which are all traits that come straight from me. I would like to think I’m a little nicer to hang out with than Jim, though.

I particularly enjoyed the strong characters in Tempus, and their often amusing interactions. Do you think readers of this genre are more drawn to strong characters or strong stories?

Tempus season two As the books were written to emulate the feeling of watching TV shows like Buffy, Angel, and Supernatural, I would say that it’s the characters that have to be the biggest draw. If you connect with the characters in a TV show, you tune in week after week. Even if you miss an episode, they’re still there and you still care about them. They become your friends, and when a show ends, it can feel like losing a friend (or several friends) if they are well-written and connect with you. I’m not saying the plot doesn’t need to be there, but I think if you enjoy spending time with the characters, you would read a chapter or watch a show of just them sitting around and talking to each other.

A strong story is needed to draw you in, but once you’re in, I think you stay for the friends you’ve made.

In your writing, I detect an undercurrent of scepticism towards the Judeo-Christian worldview. To what extent am I reading too much into your writing?

For a long time in my life, I did hold a very sceptical attitude towards religion in general and Christianity in particular. I should add that this attitude was specifically aimed at the branch of Christianity I will (for lack of a better word) call “American Christianity” – the kind where you go to a mega-church, are super-self-righteous, believe every word in the Bible should be taken literally, and think that you are better than those of a different faith or denomination, just because your pastor has told you so.

I’m born in Denmark and was raised Danish Protestant, which is probably the most laid-back version of Christianity you can find. We were told by our priest that the Bible was all symbolic and probably didn’t happen the way it was stated, but that it’s a matter of philosophy and belief in something bigger than yourself. That is something I can agree with. To this day, I can still feel annoyed by people in real life, as well as in books and films, who act holier-than-thou due to their faith, and I can get downright angry when I see religion used as a weapon (again, both in fiction and in real life.)

When I created Jim, I felt like he would be a good way of expressing these emotions. Jim was killed and woke up from the dead, but his beloved wife, who was with him at the time and was also shot, did not wake up. Where is the justice in that? Why would a benevolent God allow this to happen to him, but not to her? That sort of question, I thought, might drive a man not only to hate God but to hate religion in general. When you on top of this have him living in a world where he knows there are things bigger than us (he encounters spirits, half-deities, and other things far more powerful than him) he would suspect that there actually was a God somewhere that took delight in hurting him and letting him live forever without the woman he loved. That would also drive him to hate that God.

I thought it would be an interesting characteristic in a hero – especially as a counterpoint to someone like Dan Brown’s Robert Langdon, who is a very spiritual man that embraces the divine in a sort of sceptical way. So yes, Jim hates religion, because I have a distaste for some parts of religion.

As for myself, I believe that there is something bigger than us. But I am also quite sure none of the organised religions have hit a home run. To me, it’s more about a philosophy and about aspiring to be a better person.

(As a minor spoiler for book three – in that book, we actually find out why Jim was made immortal. And the reason isn’t what you think.)

Some of your stories are torn from historic fact (for example the Zodiac serial killer which comes into one of the stories in the second Tempus volume). How much research do you do, and how much of this research sparks new creative directions in your writing?

In the case of Zodiac, the research actually came before the writing, because I read two books about him and decided that I wanted to add him to my fictional universe. However, it meant I had to be creative, as I had already established Jim didn’t live in San Francisco during the time of his murders. So in the book, Jim is only passing through San Francisco at that point and gets drawn into the case. I guess you could say that it sparked some creativity, as I had to come up with a character that the Zodiac could be.

I did a lot of research on the city of San Francisco itself, including taking a trip there between writing books two and three. I wanted to walk the streets my characters lived on. That made me realise the San Francisco I knew from books and movies was very different from the real one.

Generally, I try to do just enough research that the book doesn’t feel like a textbook. To me, the story and the characters are more important than the details of the background, but I also don’t want to screw things up and say something completely wrong. What I do try, though, is to always get the geography right. If you took my book in your hand and walked around the city of San Francisco, you could find most of the places the story takes place. I even put a bunch of pictures on Instagram under #TempusTourSF where you could see the real places. This is generally why I only write about cities I’m familiar with, and why so many of my other stories take place in Tucson. I don’t want to bore my reader with a bunch of facts, but I also want to make it feel real – so I guess the answer is that I do a fair bit of research but not all of it ends up in the books.

Have you ever had a supernatural experience yourself?

On a couple of occasions, I’ve seen what is referred to as “Shadowmen” – black figures with glowing eyes. Once when I was a young boy, and once as an adult. Both times only very briefly, because… well, because I ran like hell.

I’ve also had a more kind and benevolent experience: When my maternal grandfather died, I felt him on many times “coming back to check” on me. He had a very distinctive smell of tobacco and aftershave, and I would sometimes smell that, very strongly, in my apartment for a brief time – perhaps a minute. I always took that as a sign that he was looking in to see how I was doing. I think it happened five or six times and eventually it stopped. My grandfather was an author like me, and he was very proud of the fact that I started writing, so perhaps that’s the reason he dropped in.

Besides Tempus, you’ve written some short story collections. Tell us a bit about them.

My other books Dreams and Awakenings, Between Above and Below, Introduction to Isolation and The Tucson Time Traveler are all collections, albeit the stories are of different length. Between Above and Below are actually more like novellas, four stories in one book, while the others are shorter and more normal short story length. The short ones are what I like to call “Twilight Zone Fiction” by which I mean dark stories with a twist ending. The Tucson Time Traveler crossed more into the sci-fi world, so I suppose the TV show Black Mirror is a closer analogy than the old Twilight Zone. I like to see if I can do the unexpected in a story, so the twist might be big or small but it’s always there. I like the short story as a medium; because you’re allowed to do stuff you can’t do in a novel without upsetting the reader.

Between Above and Below though, was something different for me. Those stories are mostly not scary but go deeper into the people I tell about. One is a psychological thriller, one is a love story, and one is a story about angels and demons – and then, yes, there’s one scary one about a monster, just because I couldn’t help myself. The stories in that book are the most personal and (in my own opinion) the best I’ve ever written, which is why that one was also the one I published in Danish. When I did that, I ended up cutting the monster story and writing a new, non-scary one instead. That one I put on my website for free in English, so you could read it even if you’d already bought the English version. It’s called The Birthday Bike. (You can find it here.)

To what extent (if at all) do you agree with the statement “write what you know”?

I don’t agree with it at all. If I only wrote what I knew, it would be some very boring books. I think imagination is the key. You need to think yourself into a different place, into a different person. Looking at the world through your character’s eyes can be cathartic in many ways. I like to read books with supernatural elements, fantasy, space opera, and that sort of thing. I am pretty sure none of those authors have been to space or fought vampires. Stephen King was a schoolteacher in a little town in Maine when he wrote some of the best horror short stories ever, and sure, he added bits and pieces from his own experiences (like the textile mill in Graveyard Shift) but mostly it was make-believe. I’m a big believer in make-believe.

Which writers inspire you?

Stephen King is my greatest inspiration. I could say I’ve loved everything he’s ever written, but that would be a lie. But I’ve read everything he’s ever published (even the hard to find stuff) and I’ve learned from it. I don’t copy him, but I get inspired.

Two Danish authors – Dennis Jürgensen and Knud Holten – were the ones that made me want to write stories back when I was young, and I owe it to them that I became an author. I had the opportunity to meet both of them and they were amazing people.

Last but not least, a German children’s author named Michael Ende, who wrote Momo and The Never-ending Story. That was the first time I remember being sucked into a book so deeply that I cried when it was over, because I identified so much with the main character. Ever since then, I can read his books and be inspired by his language and his imagination (although I’m not sure how his language works in the English translation).

What are your future writing plans?

I’m publishing a book of love stories called Lover’s Moon in the summer or fall of 2020. It’s a “love mosaic” – 12 stories that take place in the same normal Friday evening in Copenhagen, about how love happens in 12 different ways. Old love, new love, parental love, chased love, love for your pet, love of God… It’s a very different book than I have ever done before, and I’m very keen on finding out what my long-time readers think about it. The book will be available in both Danish and English.

And of course, the third volume in the Tempus Investigations will also be out this summer. I think it’s the best of the bunch. I haven’t quite decided what I’ll write next, but I’m leaning towards a book of longer science fiction stories about how the technology impacts our daily life. I’ve already written a couple of them.

What advice would you give someone who tells you they want to be a writer?

Read a lot. Write a lot. Keep writing, even if what you’re doing sucks, as long as it makes you happy to do so. You will get better in time. Listen to criticism from beta readers and/or editors – they want to help you get better. And last, but not least, realise that while you might not become the next J.K. Rowling or Dan Brown and sell a billion copies worldwide, making millions in the process – every time just ONE person reads your book, you touch that person. They live for a little while in a world you made up, and that should be all you ever require.

Check out Claus Holm’s published works here and his blog here.

Simon Dillon Books

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Monthly Archives: July 2020