Fox Blog

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Out Now! Guardians

The third Fox Pocket volume Guardians is now available from Lulu as a paperback.

FS Guardians wrap 300ppi

 

‘What if the thing you were afraid of was what stood between you and a bloody death? What if the fate of worlds was in our hands? What if God just couldn’t take it any more?’

PHASED by Colin Sinclair THE GUARDIAN by Geraldine Clark-Hellery BUFFALO DOLLS AND HEADLESS SOLDIERS by Jack Hanson ARABESQUE by Chris Galvin SWUNG by Paul Starkey OF THE GLARE by Alec McQuay GATEWAY by Jonathan Ward DEFIANT by Christian D’Amico RE-SEMBLANCE by Emma Teichman WARDEN OF VALDR by Rahne Sinclair LOST BONDS by Margrét Helgadóttir FAVOURS THE PREPARED by James Fadely WRECKED by Den Patrick FAT ANGELS by Alasdair Stuart MY GUARDIAN’S GUARDIAN by Catherine Hill WELL OUR FEEBLE FRAME HE KNOWS by Chloë Yates

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Not The Fox News, January 2014: Memeoriam Day

(With special thanks to Saxon Bullock for looking at early drafts and helping me untangle the rat king of stuff I wanted to say.)

 

Let’s talk about what’s going to happen when I rule the world. Being a global dictator isn’t easy and, these days, it’s all about the PR. So, in addition to the social media push and viral ads that will shortly spring up, I intend to mark my coronation with the creation of a new national holiday; Memeoriam Day

Memeoriam Day will be the day that we say goodbye to all the tired old running jokes that have barnacled the hull of the good ship Pop Culture across the last decade. Festivities begin at the start of the year as the jokes start their long trip across the world. As the months pass, retrospectives will be aired, the talking heads who always get wheeled out will be allowed a day pass from their secure reserve somewhere on the Norfolk Broads to pass comment and, quietly, the countdown website will mark time.

Then, the final stage will begin. A huge, open air party will begin as the jokes, carried by members of the public or, perhaps, their original writers, will process to the Tower Of London. There, they will be interred in a vault far beneath the ground where tearful monks will recite them one last time. On the final, whispered ‘lol’, the monks will withdraw and the vault door will shut. It will not open again before the next ceremony. No one has the key to it, not even me and the plans were destroyed once it was constructed.

Finally, Jules Holland will lead the planet in a rousing chorus of ‘Always Look On The Bright Side Of Life’ because for some reason that one’s bullet proof. Once it’s concluded, we’ll all go on with our lives, stumbling out onto the freshly mowed grass of pop culture to explore it anew. The jokes interred will be remembered but never spoken of again, at least, not in public. Of course there will be speakeasies, places where the old jokes flow freely. They will exist because every society needs a pressure valve and, more importantly, because I allow them to exist.

 

For Now.

 

So, what will be the first batch of jokes into the Vault, and why? Hypothetically? Because clearly I’m not planning on executing this plan this year…

Ahem.

 

-JJ Abrams and lens flare, because even he’s admitted it was a touch out of hand.

-All Michael Bay movies are awful, because they’re just not. Oh, certainly, some are and Revenge of the Fallen is legitimately one of the worst films I have ever seen. But this is also the director behind the original Bad Boys, The Rock, Con Air and Pain and Gain. There’s more to him than incomprehensible action scenes and a deep profound love for military hardware.

Shut up.

There is.


Some of the time.

–Twilight and 50 Shades of Grey as arbiters of bad writing. This one is a straight up public service because the only thing you’re proving every time you make this point is that you haven’t paid enough attention to modern popular fiction. There is much, much worse out there. Waiting. Testing the fences. Looking for weaknesses. It remembers…

-Jar Jar. Please, baby, for all of us. Let it go.

-Joss Whedon shows are always brilliant and always fail. Because they aren’t and they don’t. Worse, believing either perpetuates the underdog myth that continues to surround the writer and director of one of the most successful films of all time and the disproportionate and massively tedious backlash against his most recent projects.

-Waiting to the end of the credits just in case Nick Fury shows up to recruit the character into the Avengers. I’ve done this one myself. I love this one. But it’s time. It’s just (sniff) it’s time…(whimpers)


-Summer Glau kills shows. Because Summer Glau is not the show-killer. Summer Glau is not the little death that brings total obliteration. We will face Summer Glau’s body of work. We will permit it to pass over and through our minds. Perhaps even in Arrow. And when Summer Glau has gone past we will turn the inner eye to see her path. Where Summer Glau has gone there will be something. Her work on The Sarah Conner Chronicles in particular will remain.

-‘Hate-Watching’. The entire concept. Seriously. What the Hell is wrong with you?

 

Should this be successful, a second scheme would be introduced the following decade. A global holiday entitled ‘Never Going To Happen Day’, it would be a sad day of remembrance dedicated to laying to rest those cherished fan dreams that will forever remain so. Doctor Who fans will observe this as ‘Sally Sparrow Day’.

 

Finally, every day really will be the first day of spring. I’ve seen the blueprints for the satellites. This is going to RULE.

 

Anyway, those robot armies won’t build themselves! See you next month, citizens!

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What I Learned from Cult TV – Philip Thorogood

What I Learned From Cult TV – Self

Compared to some of my friends, my exposure to cult tv is somewhat limited. My journey through the phenomenon started when I stumbled onto Sir Patrick Stewart, commanding the USS Enterprise as Jean-Luc Picard. The details are blurred, but I remember being captured by the show almost instantly. I hit upon Buffy in a similar manner, and very clearly remember the episode I blundered into – The Pack (Xander is taken over by an animal spirit and effectively “goes rogue”).

Xander

It was my father that took me from Star Trek into the darker realms of the X-Files, roaming the America with Mulder and Scully in search of the criminal, the alien and the down-right weird. From there, I continued to explore Buffy and Star Trek further, seeking out the earlier episodes and seasons (and incarnations, in Star Trek’s case). Whereas my fellows spread themselves widely over the net of Cult tv, I settled into these few.

Together, my father and I tackled Farscape. Now this, I could really sink my claws into – strange aliens, twisting plot lines and characters that were fickler than Spike from Buffy (gotta love him, though) – Farscape was a sci-fi dream. Unfortunately, as these things go, the Sci-fi Channel cancelled the show, much to fan uproar. Luckily, or unluckily, depending how you view it, less than two years later a newcomer arose to fill my Farscape shaped-void. In September, 2004, along came the glorious, the frustrating, the amazing, Lost.

 

LostPoster 

Lost was at once both incredibly riveting, and daringly frustrating. Each episode brought new information and even more questions to us dedicated fans, renewing the question in our minds over and over again – why do we keep watching? Whatever you think of the way they ended the series, it was ground breaking piece of television history for me; it made me realise what I gained from these shows. The characters of Lost were varied (to put it minimally), but each one held the same attribute that I suddenly recognised from the previous productions that I had fallen in love with – they were true to themselves.

The sense of self that each character had, from Lost and beyond, even when they doubted themselves, was believable. Not only were they believable, but they were admirable in their belief of their own personality. No matter what came their way, they were themselves. John Locke in Lost continually throws a stick into everyone else’s works, but he never does truly give up – he keeps on throwing that stick in there day in, day out. Buffy railed against Giles’ rules at almost every opportunity, and dammit if Jean-Luc Picard didn’t hold his own against Madred (THERE. ARE. FOUR. LIGHTS). It is this self-belief that has wormed its way into me, thanks to these shows, and others since.

There is some debate lately about whether or not shows like24 and Breaking Bad are to be considered “cult”, and I’m not here to argue the point either way. I will say that Jack Bauer did EVERYTHING in his power to do the right thing every damn time, and Walter White (Say my name), whilst he fooled himself on his motives for a long time, continued to produce that lucrative Blue Sky right up until the end of the series.

Walter White 

Whatever the truth about the above shows cult status, I learnt from these programs that you are who you are. It may change subtly from time to time, and some people may disagree with how you think and what you do; but thanks to these character’s perseverance I know that remaining true to yourself is the best course of action for everybody, and that’s a lesson I have taken to heart.

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What I Learned From Cult TV – Jay Andrew

No Assembly Required

I grew up in a very dislocated, fractured and otherwise dysfunctional family. Any closeness and bonds were formed in pain and of secrets, of showing the world a united normality while hiding our wounds. I left as soon as I could.

All of my fandoms have bands of brothers and sisters, if not of blood then of spirit and purpose, brought together by happenstance. The various crews of the Enterprises, Voyager, Deep Space Nine, Firefly, the Liberator and Galactica. The Scoobies and the Dollhouse actives. The Doctor and his companions. With my father dead and estranged from my mother and brothers, I set about building my own team of loyal compatriots who would have my back and supply the kinship I craved.

Fortunately for me, I found my life partner very early on in my search. He’s my Wash, my Paul Ballard, my Imzadi. That was the easy part. Slightly less easy but most satisfying was the child we have together. There aren’t a lot of good examples of parent-child relationships in the fandoms. I’ve tried hard to be more Joyce Summers or Beverley Crusher than John Winchester.

250px-BeverlyCrusher

I set about auditioning likely candidates. Over the next 20 years, I tried and failed to bring together disparate people to fill the roles I was hell-bent on casting them in. I tried workers’ co-operatives, anarchist groups, theatre companies and I even dabbled in paganism.

The problem, as I was so very slow to grasp, was that I was not Gene Roddenberry, creating a world of harmony. I was George RR Martin and Joss Whedon at their most brutal. When these people didn’t come up to scratch, I killed them off. Not literally, you understand (although there were some who, if I could have got away with it I would have) but they were written out from the series in my head. And like George and Joss, I didn’t care that other people had become attached to them – when they failed to live up to my expectations or let me down as I saw it, they were gone.

I was not Captain Janeway, uniting the Federation and the Macquis. I was not Buffy, fighting the good fight at the Hellmouth (or Glasgow, same difference) no matter how much I tried.

This year the sharp truth finally dawned. I was destructive and controlling. I was Boyd Langton in the penultimate episode of Dollhouse –

boyd

“You’ve proven yourselves in so many ways. I-I-I wanted you all with me – except for Paul.”

There have been too many Pauls. I am Angel, sending Lorne off with Lindsey to do his dirty work for him (I have a soft spot for Lindsey – so sue me!) and Angelus at his raging worst. I am Bennett Halverson, trying to make dolls out of real people. I am Echo at her worst–

“Paul Ballard: I think you’ve got a hundred people living inside your head, and you’re the loneliest person I know.

Echo: That’s kind of sweet.

Paul Ballard: Not for the person who’s with you.”

It’s hard to admit to yourself that you’re not the hero in your own story, not the captain of your ship. That you’re not even the wise-cracking Zeppo-like Xander or horror of horrors, the Neelix of the crew.  That maybe, you’re the one that’s broken. Alpha. Willow. Faith. Starbuck. But as in all the best stories, the most damaged and fucked-up person can be redeemed. It’s never too late to turn that corner. And I am trying. I’ve realised that the best people in my life are not the ones I put there but the ones who turned up and stayed. People I’ve known for decades, people I have grown up with who have always been there. My watchers, if you like. Yeah, I’ve been lost in the Delta Quadrant but I’m bringing this bird home. It just turned out I was the one in most in need of a rewrite and an edit.

“Love. You can learn all the math in the ‘Verse, but you take a boat in the air that you don’t love, she’ll shake you off just as sure as the turning of the worlds. Love keeps her in the air when she oughta fall down, tells you she’s hurtin’ ‘fore she keens.”

Firefly_class_ship

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Tales of the Fox & Fae… going live.

The long awaited (sorry about that) Tales of the Fox and Fae is going live this weekend in paperback via amazon.

fox-and-fae front-cover-1

Deep in the woods where wild things lurk you’ll find foxes and rarer creatures, the fae. Join us for tales of faeries at the bottom of the garden, foxes falling foul of their own nature, battles fought in the night where human lives hang in the balance. Not all faeries are good, not all foxes are hunted. Welcome to our Tales of the Fox & Fae.

The ebooks will follow in the near future. Ebooks, because the Outfoxed comic strip will be made available separately for free in ebook version rather than being included in the main ebook for formatting reasons.

 

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Not the Fox News: The First State of the Union

I’ve been thinking a lot about the future recently. It’s sort of my job, but it’s also something that we can’t avoid at this time of year. 2013 is calling time and putting the chairs on the tables whilst 2014 is trying not to look too nervous as it takes its tracksuit off and warms up. This is a time of year where reflection isn’t just expected it’s almost compulsory.

That leads to some really kick ass writing by the way. Paul Cornell’s 12 Blogs of Christmas are always really good value but this year he’s been on exceptional form. 2013 has been what my amazing girlfriend would call ‘burly’, an intense, bruiser of a year that’s worked hard for all 365 days and is only reluctantly showing signs of slowing down. There have been times, and anyone who was reading my blog in the top six months of the year would know exactly what times they were, when it’s been deeply, profoundly unpleasant.

Thanks for having my back this year, Phil.

That lack of pleasant hasn’t just stemmed from the profound professional frustration I’ve felt for a good chunk of this year. A lot of it has stemmed from the realization that a lot of the time, geek culture enables and encourages misery. The whole concept of geek/nerd/counter culture is so wrapped up in being the underdog that even when we aren’t, we’re conditioned to act like we are.

It’s not just that there’s always something wrong with a movie or a book or a comic or someone’s blog post either, although God knows that sort of stuff has been endemic this year. When we’re not complaining that something’s been done wrong, we’re complaining it’s been done at all and we absolutely will not stop until the same nine people agree with us, argue with us or passive aggressively block us on Twitter.

Again.

I’ve seen things, to misquote Roy Batty, that would make you go ‘…Wait, you’re supposed to be a grown up? You’re the industry leaders whose standards we all have to aspire to? SERIOUSLY?’

I’ve seen authors ignore some of the first people to beta read their first book as they pass in convention hallways. I’ve seen authors pick fights they had no business being anywhere near or comport themselves on Twitter in a manner that suggests their ASSHAT UNION membership card has arrived and they’re just so pleased they can’t wait to show it to everyone.

It’s not just authors either. Bloggers who’ve picked fights for no reason other than they can, journalists who’ve started fights they can’t finish then played the victim card and run. I’ve seen celebrity authors pampered and sucked up to by the same editors who let out streams of invective as high pitched as they were ineffectual at people who they thought beneath them. I’ve seen ‘fans’ race to pour scorn on anyone who dared to like something they didn’t, or sneak pictures of an old, tired, ill man because it might be the last time they were in the same room as him and God forbid they should treat him like a human.

I have so much more. I have an amount you wouldn’t believe of stories of people being dicks. Objectification by both genders, high school cliquery, bullying, the sort of cult of personality bullshit that makes you want to not just leave these people’s company but shower and not stop until you feel clean again.   Fandom, and I actually cringed writing that word, has shown the world it’s ass over and over in 2013.

It’s been pretty depressing at times. You may be able to tell.

Here’s the thing. I have an outsider complex the size of a small moon at the best of times and there’ve been months this year that I’ve felt like a man without a country. Times where I’ve looked around at the conversation and the people leading it and frankly wondered if it wasn’t too late to learn enough about football and soap operas that I could fit effortlessly back into the general population, sort of like Bruce Campbell at the end of Darkman.

I didn’t for three reasons. Firstly because simply making that comparison tells me this is where I should be, secondly because Bruce Campbell already had that exit sewn up and thirdly because when it comes down to it, I’ve seen what comes next. And it’s BRILLIANT.

Seriously, the dusty cults of personality, the grudges held for years, the ludditery and celebration of the past at the endless, endless expense of the present and the future? It’s being replaced, person by person, con by con. What’s replacing it, Commander Bowman?

See, Dave knows.

But surely publishing is dying? I pretend to hear you cry. Publishing isn’t dying. Or rather it is in the same way that comics publishing was dying a decade ago when I ran a comic store. Numbers are down, prices are up, electronic retail is squeezing it dry and the sky is falling.

But the sky is always falling.

Comics endure. Books endure. We endure and survive and, ultimately, evolve. Look at the indie press scene in this country and don’t use small press as a term, please. It belittles the hard work of everyone involved in companies like Anachron, Jurassic and Fox Spirit. These are groups of people whose invention is matched only by their lunacy at working so hard for so little financial gain. Colin Barnes, Jared Shurin and Anne C. Perry, Aunty Fox, all the others have stepped up and MADE something whilst everyone else has been busy doomsaying and remembering how drunk they got at We Like A-Line Flares and The Bay City Fucking Rollerscon back in 197aeons ago.

Authors, editors and agents are the same. Lou Morgan, Andrew Reid, Joan De La Haye, Jennifer Williams, Liz De Jager, Alec McQuay, Dan Sawyer, Vincent Holland Keen, Adam Christopher, Colin Barnes again, Steven Saus, Scott Roche, Jared Shurin and Anne C. Perry again, Tim Maughan, Kate Laity, Mhairi Simpson, David Barnett, Nayad Monroe, Sarah Hans, Mur Lafferty, Lee Harris, Amanda Rutter, Den Patrick, Will Hill, Kim Curran, Guy Adams, Tom Pollock, Djibril al-Ayad, Matt Wallace, Jacqueline Koyanagi, Juliet Mushens and all the others have built their careers from the ground up. Brick by brick by author by book these people have hand sold, promoted, represented appeared on podcasts, written blogs, submitted work, read slush and slowly and surely they’ve made ground. Slowly and surely they’ve changed the game. Slowly and surely they’ve won .

You know the coolest thing about that list? I added to it twice and I know it’s not complete, even now. These people, and the legions I missed, are building the future with a combination of grim determination and total empathy. The con organizers are the same, and anyone who thinks different hasn’t looked at Nine Worlds, the plans LonCon 3 have or what Lee Harris and Sophia McDougall are building at FantasyCon ’14.

It won’t be overnight, because it never is, but the change that’s coming isn’t just one of talent, it’s one of atmosphere. At every level of every element of genre fiction publishing, the culture is changing from one of tradition and exclusion to one of individuality and inclusion. Yes the support structures are smaller, yes the work is harder to do but the rewards are all the sweeter if you can do it. Like the man says, it’s a good life if you don’t weaken and everyone I mention here can attest to that. These people love what they do so much they teach other people to love it too. No whining, no backbiting, no psychological games. Just the agent, the editor, the publisher, the writer, the reader and the text and, yes, they’re all walking into a bar.

This is a wonderful time to be anywhere near fiction. The step change that’s coming will echo up and down for decades to come and it’ll be so much more positive and interesting than so much of what we’ve had to put up with in recent years.

What do you think, Josh?

Good boy.

What’s next? That’s easy. It’s the future. And this time everyone’s invited.

Happy New Year

 

Jacqueline Koyanagi

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What I Learned from Cult TV – E J Davies

Gender, intelligence, background, job description, humour level, sense of humanity, number of guns, allergy to sunlight, being the chosen one, sexuality, marital status – none of them form an impediment to being a badass.
That’s right, folks, it’s the old EJ hobby horse of equality.  That’s principally what I learned from Cult TV, and it’s all thanks to Joss Whedon.
It was the delightful exposure to the first season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer at the tender age of 22.  Through the delightful eyes of Whedon I was exposed to the world of a typical teenage American high school girl, albeit one that looked like Sarah Michelle Gellar, her British watcher – Giles; and her geeky, outcast friends.  As someone who perpetually failed to fit in, it was an interesting cast and an interesting story.  I slowly fell out of love withBuffy as it strayed from its beginnings, as the stories got more convoluted and the cast got bigger.  Yet is still remains a genre defining TV show.
buffy
Angel, on the other hand, remains as a perpetual favourite.  Not least for the way that almost every character tickles the ribs of another.  It was through Angel, Wesley, Cordelia, Fred, Gunn, and Lorne that no matter who has the upper hand – strength or smarts-wise – each character is a badass in their own right.  Green, black, higher power, daemon hunter – rogue daemon hunter; genius abandoned in Pylea, vampire, reformed vampire, lawyer, female, male – it didn’t matter.  Though it never reached the popular heights of its sister show, it is still a firm favourite of mine.
angel1
Firefly, watched six times over in 2013, exemplifies Whedon’s work; and it is my favourite of his shows.  Its cast, clearly enjoying their characters and scripts, hit the ground running from episode one; and bring us such wonderful and enticing people to spend time with.  Each and every one of them strong, flawed, funny, interesting, complex, motivated, and individual.  The reasons I love this show are many and varied, but at Mal’s table every crew member has a voice and a job; even if the final say is his.
firefly
Dollhouse too feature ensemble casts of diverse characters, each a badass in their own right, and each contributing to a collective, making the whole greater than the sum of its parts.
Whedon’s shows, sadly, are not typical.  His work challenges the preconceptions of the TV establishment – those that listen to focus groups, that talk in terms of racial diversity – meaning they need to get a black person, a gay person, a woman who isn’t the romantic lead, and an Asian person on the show full of white men.  There are too many TV shows these days that focus on diversity – or completely ignoring it – whilst forgetting about equality, and in doing so they lose what is magical to viewers like me.  I could care less what colour, gender, or sexual orientation my lead character is, or the group of people they surround themselves with.  What I want is something interesting to watch with a character that makes me laugh, and makes me think
Then I found this video:
Joss Whedon has been a pioneer in this field, crafting shows that appeal to the outsider, the forgotten, the smaller demographic.  He gives us an ensemble of characters so that we can choose who we identify with, without having to be told.  He gives us characters that understand that being together, and working together makes things all the sweeter in their victory, and failures are softened.
Yet, through everything, the one abiding message I have from all of the Whedon shows is this:
Heroes can come from anywhere.  They can be anyone.  They can do anything.
You don’t have the buy or be sold that the hero is black/gay/female/fat/short/an alien/not super smart – if the character does the heroic deeds with humility and is as flawed the next person, then you have a well written character regardless of who they are.
Equality means anyone can be a hero, and it’s Whedon’s world in which I choose to live.
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