Fox Blog

Posted on

Five on Friday : N.O.A. Rawle

1 Involution Ocean by Bruce Sterling. My introduction to sci-fi and an eye-opener to the world of addiction, I think I was about 11 when I read this story of John Newhouse’s quest to find a supply of Flare an illegal drug. Well worth searching for it! (The book not the drug…)

1

2 The Whispering Knights by Penelope Lively. Here was my introduction to fantasy. I loved the thought that kids (William, Sue and Martha) could do battle with witches like Morgan, then there were ancient stones and the English countryside. This may well be a little outmoded now there’s so much stuff on the market in this genre for kids.

2

3 Death bird Stories by Harlan Ellison. This is a psychedelic trip of an anthology with lots of his best inside. My personal favourite is ‘Along the Scenic Route’ because you are in the action and you know just what George, a middle-aged family man, is going through!

3

4 On Writing by Stephen King. The ultimate kick in the butt for any procrastinating talent lingering in your closet.

4

5 Jean Michel Jarre, ‘Oxygen’ and ‘Equinox’. They fuelled a thousand fantasies in my raw pre-teen mind. I’d put the repeat button and drift off to sleep with these now I can write for hours with them playing.

5

Posted on

Things I Learned from Cult TV : Alex Bardy

‘V’ The Original Mini-Series (incl. V: The Final Battle)

 

*** WARNING: SOME SPOILERS AHEAD ***

From the dreary, droning soundtrack and the contrasting credits that flash up to flag each actor/actress we’re about to see (delivered in typical Dallas or Dynasty style), one could be forgiven for not expecting much from the original ‘V’ mini-series. It appeared seemingly out of nowhere on a Monday night at the start of the children’s summer holidays, on 30th July 1984 here in the UK. The two-part mini-series, called simply ‘V’ was shown on Monday and Tuesday, and was followed by the three-part sequel V: The Final Battle on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday – a five-day extravaganza of sci-fi drama and action the like of which hadn’t really been seen on British TV before.

I was just fourteen at the time, and while I don’t recall the exact details of the broadcast, I do know it was on ITV every evening of the week, with a break in the middle for the News At Ten (which Dad always watched). And after being allowed to stay up and watch the first one (again, with Dad), my world irrevocably changed…

It would be another four or five years before Star Trek: The Next Generation would be unleashed on the world, and ten years or so before Deep Space Nine appeared, so at the time this was the closest thing you could get to anything approaching big budget spaceships and aliens on TV, or at least, that’s how it felt at the time – needless to say the show itself doesn’t hold up to close scrutiny nowadays. Previous to this, I’d been an avid viewer of Battlestar Galactica (and its terrible sequel, Galactica 1980), Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, Logan’s Run and several other ‘future/space’ shows, and both Blakes Seven and Dr Who had long since dropped off my radar (esp. once Tom Baker left the latter), so other than Knight Rider, there was very little ‘bells & whistles’ TV available for an impressionable kid of the early 1980s when this came to our screens.

‘V’ taught me many things, and introduced me to many more – and all of them in the same week, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves…

A quick summary first. In brief, visitors come from outer space claiming to be on a mission of peace, they park their huge mega-spaceships in the air above all the major cities, appear to be similar to humans and proceed to ingratiate themselves into all the major communities of the world. They apparently need some of Earth’s resources, and through elaborate machinations involving a bogus ‘scientist’s revolt’, end up enforcing a state of fascistic martial law on the entire planet while they carry out the systematic draining of its main resource: water. They also want to use humans for food, and turn them into soldiers for a war that’s rarely referenced later in the series, but that’s another story. To the surprise of no-one, it was an allegorical tale recalling the Nazi occupations of 1939 and even the stylised Visitor badge/logo is reminiscent of a Nazi swastika.

The Visitors badge and logo appeared prominently throughout the series,
the similarities to the swastika have been well-documented since.

Back then I was oblivious to any of this, every part of me transfixed and filled to bursting by all the amazing guns (“Even that Daniel kid has one, Dad!”), the huge motherships and smaller shuttle craft, the incredibly pretty alien leaders (most of them blonde), the true reptilian nature of the aliens underneath their soft-skinned human exterior, the action scenes, the alien baby (called the Star Child of all things), everything about the show in fact – my wide-eyed, innocent younger self had never seen anything like it, and I firmly believe this series alone shifted the goalposts as to what could be seen at home on your own TV without venturing out to a cinema. Consequently, it also shaped my own expectations as to what incredible worlds and universes an active imagination could transport you to, and an appreciation of those same worlds that could be created for the entertainment of others without ever having to leave the planet.

I started taking more active interest in what books and comics I wanted to read shortly after this series aired, decided I wanted to be an astronautical engineer when I was older (that didn’t happen), and also discovered roleplaying games for the first time; and all this because I wanted to pilot a spacecraft and defend the human race, just like our heroes Mike Donovan and Dr Julie Parrish seemed to do.

Alas, many dreams and wishes of youth never really came to pass, but I have remained hooked on science fiction (and fantasy) books ever since, and this proved the founding stone that kick-started a lifetime’s interest in discovering other worlds of the imagination. I did manage to branch out into editing fanzines in later years (incl. Dark Elf, Eh?, Cerebretron and Sierra Heaven), and reading some horror and mystery/thrillers too, but the latter have never really held quite the same appeal.

v

It’s hard to put my finger on just why I have such abiding memories of ‘V’, but the iconic scenes throughout are probably a big part of it, and many of them tinged with humour too:

seeing a granny throw a Molotov cocktail into a shuttle craft showed me that even old people could be rebellious; watching one of the busty female visitors strip to her underwear probably left an altogether different type of imprint on me, I suspect (“You sure don’t look like an iguana!” remarks our hero, Mike Donovan); the crazy acrobatics of the small shuttle as Mike makes his maiden flight as a space pilot showed me that even heroes could get it all wrong; the hopelessly poor aiming throughout the series (seemingly alien and human alike were all terribly bad shots) taught me how TV makers could maintain interest by stretching fight scenes and keeping multiple flashes of laser-fire on the screen at the same time; the powerful female characters throughout showed me that women could be just as badass as men in real-life … the list of youthful influences goes on. There were many things in the show that were there simply to be enjoyed as part of the overall visual extravaganza, but once again back then a lot of the underlying message and meaning was lost on me (and truth be told, probably doesn’t bear up to thorough scrutiny now) – lost that is, in a haze of gun battles, explosions, attractive women leaders, and of course, green reptilian-like aliens…

v2

This is one of the many symbolic images that defined the series. The smiley face of the
Visitors sits comfortably alongside the little reptile you’ll uncover once you start digging…

And then there was that iconic scene when Diana, the ruthlessly ambitious alien science leader, swallows a live guinea pig in one gulp just before the credits rolled on part one… this alone remains a memory forever seared into my soul – despite appearances, aliens were not very nice people, and TV producers could be absolute buggers when it comes to leaving viewers begging for more…

v4

Things didn’t let up after the two-part mini-series, either, with V: The Final Battle proving –in three parts – just as chock full of iconic scenes and grisly drama: the uncovering of leader John’s reptilian skin beneath his face was broadcast across all TV networks, making us feel like we finally had a chance against the visitors (listen to me, us and we he says…); Mike Donovan’s mother shooting at her own son was a sure sign that she was beyond redemption. Similarly, there was the come-uppance of that traitorous little blighter, Daniel – yes, he shot our beloved Ruby, captured our heroine Julie, and was generally an irritable little twerp throughout – but the bullying lapdog did at least get what was coming to him: I couldn’t have been the only one who cheered when he was led off to be served on a silver platter for his former masters… Yup, another rock solid fist-in-the-air from my younger self!

But there was still more: the iconic birth of the twins: one normal-ish (albeit with a forked tongue, aka The Star Child), the other as green and slimy as you like; watching Diana’s truth serum in action as Mike is forced to reveal his green-skinned spy-cum-collaborator, the remarkably deadpan Martin; seeing the spandex-clad Julie and also that famous Dr Whatsisname experience the dreaded conversion chamber taught me that cream-nude was a colour that could never catch on… then there was the somewhat OTT death scene for that poor defenceless little green devil-twin while the ‘normal’ Star Child shed one skin after the next, growing so fast that we all knew she was evidently having more than the famed three shredded wheat that no-one else could manage according to the TV ads of the time… 😉

v3

Other notables: an ex-army priest carrying a gun everywhere he went, and that same priest being so hopelessly misled by his unerring faith in God that he brings the Star Child to Diana along with his trusted bible, it’s hardly surprising when Diana’s take on the bible proves somewhat at odds with his own lofty expectations.

Ahhh… the little green alien thingy… We were supposed to go teary-eyed when this blighter snuffed it…

Yeh, there was hammy acting, and even hammier dialogue, and plenty of blossoming relationships that were bound to end on the trash-heap, with your typical “we’ll get married after this”-type scene resulting in at least one or the other being disappointed after the next raid. That said, the stumbling relationship between Harmony and the hapless, clumsy Willie (Robert Englund aka Freddy Krueger playing a painfully shy alien) could probably be considered a roaring success compared to the fate that befell visitor poster-boy Brian and the seemingly innocent Robin – yes, they begat the Star Child and the green thingy between them, but responsible parenting stopped when Robin decided to use Brian as a guinea pig while her daughter looks on…

‘V’ also showed me how people could deceive those they love yet still remain at heart good people, it showed me how even bad evil aliens could have a good side, and it also showed me the flipside of human misery and suffering in all its glory, and therein lies the rub, because it’s clear throughout the series that humans could also be very nasty indeed: selling each other out to the visitors at the drop of a hat, backstabbing their own for a brief slice of recognition, lauding it over those in less fortunate circumstances, the dread consequences of misplaced hope, trust and belief… The whole gamut of human weakness gets an airing, our moral frailties exposed again and again throughout, and at the heart of it the knowledge that none of this is real, yet deep down it is just that: it’s all too real and has already happened in one form or another in our past, whether or not people still choose to believe it.

 

Yes, a remarkable pair of mini-series was ‘V’ and V: The Final Battle, but all the moreso for an awkward, spotty teenager who struggled to find a place for himself between the cool footballers of the school and the smarty-pants nerdy-types (I was very good at football yet smart enough to hang with the nerds, too) – it looks like the nerds may have won that one, though, or lost it, depending on your point of view… 😀

 

SOME HANDY LINKS TO CHECK OUT:

Link to IMDB entry: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0085106/

Link to short V summary vid (recapping the first episode: 2 min warning!): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M77HfZu24bw

 

Posted on

Not the Fox News: The Five Rules


As 2015 comes to a close I’ve been thinking a lot about clarity. Ricky Jay, one of the greatest magicians of his age, talks about clarity as a vital concept in performance and it applies to writing just as much. Bloggers and magicians have a lot in common. We both have to communicate exactly what we want to our audiences. If we do that then they will be pleasantly surprised when we pull the metaphorical coin out from behind their ear.

I worry I’m really bad at it.

I run long, I know that and I also know that I have a very different approach to the vast majority of critics. I am painfully optimistic. I assume best practice where others are already writing their hate pieces and sometimes it’s difficult to figure out why. Worse, I worry that it makes me come across as naïve or worse still, wilfully ignorant.

And then Ricky Jay enters, stage left and says one word; ‘Clarity’.

So here are the five rules I approach every piece of culture with. This is how I think and why I think it.

 

  1. You Are Allowed To Like Things

You are positively and absolutely encouraged to like things. Liking things is at the heart of geek culture. Those things do not have to be the same things others like. Some of them may be – it’s called popular culture for a reason. Some of them won’t be.

That’s great. That’s the point.

For example: I’m genuinely and non-ironically fond of Armageddon. Yes it’s a ludicrous movie with entirely too much Aerosmith but it also hits me right in my Astronaut Feels. For other people that movie is nails on a chalkboard. There’s a non-zero percentage chance one of the comments I’ll get on this piece will be a variation of ‘Yeah but Armageddon’s crap’. That’s okay because we love what we love. That honest engagement is what matters.

  1. You Are Allowed To Not Like Things

You are positively and absolutely encouraged to not like things. Some of the things you don’t like will be things everyone else doesn’t like. Some of the things you don’t like will be things everyone else loves.

That’s great. That’s the point.

Another example: I have a ton of friends who adore 1960s and 1970s era Doctor Who. From Patrick Troughton up to Tom Baker, The Doctor strides across their lives like a grinning Titan made of scarves, ruffles and reversed polarity.

For me, that era is difficult if not impossible, to sit through. Does that make them inherently bad? No. Which leads us to…

  1. Share Your Joy, Not Your Rage

There is no force more inclusive and welcoming than enthusiasm.

When we connect with a piece of art, whatever that may be, it’s like setting off a rocket. We sparkle with joy, delight in the intricacies of what we’ve seen or read or played and how it makes us feel. That intense joy naturally fades over time, simply because so much of it is wrapped up in the shock and surprise of the new.

But it never dies.

And we can maintain it by telling others about what we enjoyed and sharing why.

It leads to a virtuous circle of enthusiasm. You get to squee about something you love. Your friends get introduced to new culture. Sometimes the creators get to see their work publically shared and appreciated. You expand the horizons of others, knowing they will return the favour.

The shared joy of a piece of culture loved by many cannot be overstated. Look at the new born and amazing Force Awakens fandom to see just how welcoming and fun this can be.

  1. You Are Not Allowed To Murder Other People’s Joy

There is no force more divisive and poisonous then derision.

When you share your joy, you may also be on the receiving end of its flip side. Agendas, festering political sores, discrimination, social cliques, and the scars of long past but cherished disappointments.

It’s easy to respond to joy with negativity. It’s easier still to assume that someone that hurt you before will do so again, and even more so to lash out pre-emptively. Look at the small faction of Star Wars fans merrily spoiling The Force Awakens. Or the racist, sexist discriminatory apologia groups that have tried to ‘fix’ the Hugo Awards the last several years.

I’m not saying we can’t dislike stuff. I’m not even saying we can’t talk about why people like stuff we don’t. That discussion is brilliant and vital. What I’m against is criticising other people for liking something we don’t.

Let’s re-frame it. Say you’re sitting in a favourite restaurant. You’re chatting to your friends about how great your meal is. Someone someone at a nearby table turns round and says ‘Why are you eating that? It’s garbage.’

Rude. Upsetting. Unnecessary. At best its poor communication skills. At worst it’s cruel for cruelty’s sake.

Don’t do it. Especially don’t do it to enhance your personal brand as we’ve already, hilariously, seen with The Force Awakens. Crapping on someone’s joy is different from critique or commentary. Learn and PRACTICE that difference. Everyone will be happier. Including you.

  1. Culture Changes and Grows. So Must You.

You could read a book, see a movie, or watch an episode of a show every day for your entire life and there would still be incredible work you’d miss. But you can still have fun trying.

A couple of years ago a friend of mine chided me for my limited cinema habits. At that time I was on an ‘orange explosions and superheroes’ kick. While it was fun, it was also limiting. Since then, I’ve made a point of expanding my horizons and it’s paid off again and again especially this year. The Lady in the Van, Deceptive Practices, Burnt and Steve Jobs are some of the best movies I’ve seen this year. They all fall outside my usual inclinations. But because I saw them and liked them I’ll now go and seek out other movies in similar fields. Some will be awful, others won’t. But my tastes will expand, or at least my exposure to different things. I’ll learn more. I’ll have new things to talk to people about. I’ll enjoy more, even if it’s a single thing more.

And that’s great.

And that’s the point

 

Thanks as ever to Adele and the Fox Spirit team. Thanks to you all for reading. Have an excellent festive season and I’ll see you in 2016.

Posted on

Out Now! Things in the Dark

What lurks in the dark just out of site?
What horrors are waiting for the unwary?
What about mole people?

This latest Fox Pocket is a collection of strange, scary and sometimes humorous tales considering all manner of…things in the dark.

things

Contents: Andre Reid – Rise of the Huntress, Stephen Poore – Junior Twilight Stock Replacer, Andie Percival – Running from Sleep, Ben Stewart – Close your Eyes, Carol Borden – Thomas Hobbes Vs The Mole People, Chloe Yates – The Devil’s Haemorrhoids, Craig Leyenaar – Down by the River, Danie Ware – Smile, Den Patrick – Occlusion, James Fadeley – Selachimorpha Caesar, Jennifer L Barnes – A Boomstick and Popcorn Seasoning, Jenny Barber – In Darkness Dreaming, Kit Marlowe – The Ransom of Red Witch, Margret Helgadottir – Nightmare, Rahne Sinclair – See you in the morning, Sarah Cawkwell – Things, Sarah Langton – Welcome to the Northern Line, W.P.Johnson – Shelob Headlines the Ox

Things in the Dark is the 6th Fox Pocket available now from Amazon, the remaining titles will be available soon.

The Fox Pockets are pocket sized books of short and flash fiction giving you a taste of some of the fantastic new authors hitting the shelves. pockets

 

Posted on

Monday Methods : N.O.A. Rawle

Virginia Wolfe longed for a room of her own and a £100 a week/month. As a 21st century writer and mum these things are essential still a consideration, but not so much as time of one’s own. With all the pressures of work and family responsibilities squashing me into a warped distortion of what I would be if I lead a life of leisure, we just had a little more time I think time to one’s self is the essential thing any writer needs. I have choices along the lines of: write at 2 am or zombify the kids with a DVD or a new game for the tablet, abandon all those essential tasks like cooking/cleaning/marking (I’m a teacher in my other life). I know these are not the best mothering/living/teaching techniques but when deadlines are drawing in, and then emergency measures must be taken!

IMG_20151029_001143

Then there’s the silence. Ok, so headphones and instrumental music or songs I’ve heard so many times that I am not distracted by the lyrics will work most of the time, but there are moments when you just need silence to write in.

The space and the place are of no consequence (I perch in the corner of a room with a desk smaller than my laptop and work still gets done) but time and silence really are golden.

Posted on

African Monsters : The Tokoloshe by Nick Wood

Why the Tokoloshe?

Have a look at Penny Miller’s (1979) wonderful ‘Myths and Legends of Southern Africa’ or, if you’re more academically inclined, try Nhlanhla Mkhize’s (1996) ‘Mind, gender, and culture: A critical evaluation of the phenomenon of Tokoloshe “sightings” among prepubescent girls in Kwazulu-Natal’ – via http://www.criticalmethods.org/bodtwo.htm

penny

But, as for me, if you want the truth, the little monster called me to watch him…

*****

The Tokoloshe smelt someone coming, even as the late afternoon air hummed with hot sun and clouds and a rainbow arch crumbled into a million dying pieces above his head.

Still, the river flowed strongly, swirling logs and leaves and dead fleshy things past him.

He stepped up onto the river bank to sniff the air, and he could smell the coming human was a she.

He grinned then, licking his sharp teeth, flicking fur out of his eyes and twisting his only garment, a leather strung hip pouch, into ready position. His witch would be pleased. The thick riverside bushes bustled with movement.

Ooh, a young smell. She whom he served would be very pleased.

He slung his penis over his left shoulder and fumbled in his pouch for his stone, but there was no time. The bushes burst apart and a skinny, dishevelled girl was staring down at him.

She looked tired and her trousers were torn, with both her legs bleeding.

I know, fuck those thorn bushes, he thought, but the girl’s eyes opened wide in shock and she shrunk against the bushes.

He licked his teeth again, slowly, waiting for her to turn and run.

But she stood firm, returning his gaze.

He grabbed his penis, flailing it like a warning whip.

Still, she did not run.

Brave or stupid?

Either way, she was dead meat.

He leaped forward to grab her…

Posted on

African Monsters : A Mirror to a Tenebrous Sun by Su Opperman

When Jo Thomas approached me with this project I was immediately intrigued.  Recently, in the art world there’s been a surge of interest in Africa and the continent’s distinct visual style has extended far beyond its borders. African culture is embedded with deep metaphors and unique colloquialisms that have not been favoured with the degree of translation and ease of access often enjoyed by other cultures. In South Africa, our past of forced segregation has historically kept us apart from the rest of the continent; a separation that, to my mind, was reawakened and hard felt by the spate of xenophobic attacks on African foreigners by South African nationals over the last several years. On a daily basis the unfathomable is captured in the harsh contrasts of everyday life.

Our monsters give voice to us, they guide us, they hold our hands.

It begs the question: how much of our existence is encapsulated in our darker impulses? How much of our conciousness is denied rational conception? Halved as it is, the human soul strives to live in the light, yet the tenebrous remains ever-present. Consequently, I viewed African Monsters as a collective nod of the head to the sharing of shadows.

13 - A Whisper in the Reeds small
A Whisper in the Reeds by Su Opperman

From an illustrative perspective, it’s rare to come across a book project where creative interpretation is given free reign. As a result, illustrating for African Monsters was just pure fun! For once the creative beast did not rear her head and all was well in Artland. I took my easel and art gear to a friend’s top floor office and from there painted and drew with the Cape Town cityscape as backdrop. At heart, I’m a spontaneous artist, making marks with great aggression and consequently, no idea what they’re going to turn into. In this case, however, I had to be a little more specific, given the brief and subject matter at hand. I’d select a story, read it in the morning and let it permeate my mind for the rest of the day. In the evenings I’d draw from the narrative inspiration and in quick marks capture the gist of my feeling on paper – from there, I’d give those initial marks a more subtle definition as the night progresses.

To recreate a story you have to retell it, as Neil Gaiman once said. He was specifically referring to a case where one of his graphic novels was unsuccessfully translated into a stage production. But that aside, drawing these illustrations for African Monsters was in a large part an act of retelling. A personal re-creating. It must be interesting from a writer’s perspective to see the illustrator’s interpretation. Imaginations are not shared, but subjective occurrences. I find it fascinating to see how a singular story elicits a wide arch of interpretation.

With that in mind, I’d like to thank Margrét Helgadóttir and Jo Thomas for organising such a great publication. I thoroughly enjoyed participating in it. I’d also like to thank the three writers I had to illustrate for: Nnedi Okorafor and Chikodili Emulumadu, your stories from Nigeria took my imagination to places rarely experienced before. Nerine Dorman, as a fellow citizen, I found your interpretation of an age old South African myth to be fresh and original. Let my last words then be, for those of you who read this blog to go read the book! You’ll like it.

Posted on

African Monsters : NOT JUST A VAGINA by Chikodili Emelumadu

I nearly expired from shock recently, when a casual friend – and fellow writer – suggested that my husband must feel cheated by me ‘using all my imagination in my book instead of elsewhere’.  When pressed, he revealed he was talking about the bedroom.

As this was someone I admired, I tried to reason with him, drawing him out to expose the flaw in his thinking. I lead him down the footpath of obliviousness so that he could drink from the watering hole of enlightenment. We talked about writing, bills, working around children and so on.  My intention was to reveal how similar to his, my own concerns were. Eventually in exasperation, I snapped:

“I am not just a vagina.”

“Interesting idea being a vagina,” came the reply. “That would have been great fun.”

ARRRGGGGGH. My friend is smart, but he just wasn’t getting it.  I’d been reduced to a sum of my parts and ‘writer’ was not one of them. I was creative, yes, but what a waste! (Have pity, Chikodili, think about the positions you could be inventing!)

The truth is, a lot of men on our continent don’t get it either. Even the more liberal fellows can slip up. They spout statements that show a beastly Hyde of misogyny and privilege lurking underneath the Jekyll of refinement.  And I understand it, I do, even if I wish I didn’t. Putting oneself in another person’s shoes is bloody hard work, especially when one has not had practice. Centuries of being the apex predator and suddenly one has to rewire one’s brain. The process must be disconcerting.

Image: Middle Girl © Tade Thompson 2015, used with permission.

In course of my life, I’ve met many men who don’t read books written by women, who cannot see themselves reflected in female protagonists, who find their minds wandering when presented with the absence of a phallic central figure. Women have been othered beyond comprehension for these men so our experiences seem alien.

We, on the other hand, having been socialised over the years into second class status are at an advantage.  As a child I feasted on works by R.L Stevenson, Dickens and Rider Haggard. I was Jim Hawkins and Oliver Twist and Allan Quatermain.  Not once did I stop to consider that their protagonists were everything I was not; white and male. Their travails were mine as were their triumphs.

So, for the benefit of those at the back, here is a short list of some things that occupy my thoughts:

  • Writing
  • My kid
  • Success
  • Bills, bills, bills
  • Success in writing
  • Money and success
  • Sex, Topped with more sex. Sprinkled with sex. Eaten with a sex spoon.

However, to hold any one of these things to be the entirety of my being, would be a mistake. Having a vagina is fantastic. But being one would not, contrary to opinion, ‘be fun’. I’m a writer and wife, a child and a mother.

But above all, human. Just like you.

Posted on

African Monsters : Sunlight, shadow and Ichitapa by Jayne Bauling

Shadow depends on light, and light can penetrate the darkness.

There was a time in my life when, as a young adult, I read mostly horror novels and sought out horror movies. Darkness characterised most of these: we got midnight terror, lightless cellars, clouds drifting across the moon at the precise moment the graveyard begins to stir. The movies were frequently frustrating to me, just because I couldn’t see what was happening.

All very scream-inducingly terrifying, but gradually I realised that unease felt in a brightly lit landscape could be a lot creepier. I remember a sun-drenched early movie version of Stephen King’s short story Children of the Corn, and too the subtle escalation of apprehension in Peter Weir’s exquisite heat-hazed Picnic at Hanging Rock, with something or nothing always just beyond the edge of sight.

I have felt that same unease under a bright blue sky, walking in a sun-bleached sweep of veld not far from Johannesburg.

I always felt that if ever I turned to writing creepy, I must remember that Africa especially lends itself to creepiness in sunshine.

Chimamanda Adichie has talked of ‘the danger of a single story’, and for many, even today, Africa the Dark Continent is that single story. When I was invited to contribute a story to African Monsters, I knew I wanted to write one with sunlight in it, although not necessarily without shadow.

Ichitapa was the most seductive of the African monsters I researched. The Ndola sunken lakes in Zambia, with their pristine water brilliantly lit by the African sun, were ideal, surrounded by the shadowy mushitu forest, dark yet admitting sufficient light in places for shadows to be cast. Together, they fired my imagination, and my story Severed is the result.

sunken lake
Sunken Lake

Light begets shadow, and our shadows seem to be an intrinsic part of us. In some cultures, not only in Africa, and especially in earlier times, they could represent the soul, or even the darkness that exists in us all. We can speculate as to what sort of meaning JM Barrie attached to the human shadow. Peter Pan loses his shadow, and he desperately wants it back to play with, so that he can be ‘real’. Wendy sews it back on, perhaps recognising its significance as an essential part of the boy, giving him humanity.

Without our shadows, we are incomplete, so if you ever visit the Ndola sunken lakes, be careful not to let your shadow fall on the water. You don’t know what might happen.

Posted on

African Monsters : At the River’s Edge by Nerine Dorman

South Africa is an arid country. Apart from a thin strip along the south coast and the sub-tropical east coast, much of the interior consists of semi-desert or bushveld. Yet there is water, and where there is water, there is life.

When many of my friends went on holiday to the coast, my parents used to take me into the mountains – specifically the Cederberg, which is situated near the dry West Coast. Sometimes we also went hiking further inland, in the Karoo semi-desert. I learned to love the big sky, the emptiness of the landscape and yes, the blessing of the rivers which wind a ribbon of life through the landscape.

It’s hardly surprising that the original inhabitants of this land – the Khoe and San hunter-gatherers – had myths related to the denizens of these bodies of water. One such, that has persisted into the modern era and possibly blended with stories European settlers brought over is that of the Karoo mermaid.

cederberg

It’s not uncommon, in some of the smaller communities, to encounter someone who knows someone who had some sort of supernatural experience. In fact, many folk beliefs persist despite the average rural South African paying lip service to the dominant religion of the country – Christianity.

Much like our Uniondale Hitchhiker (and yes, I’ve met someone who says their son experienced this phenomenon – it’s always a friend of a friend), the Karoo Mermaid persists. She is said to sit by the waterside, combing her hair. She’s been likened to a genius loci much like Zambia’s Nyami Nyami – a water spirit intrinsically linked to the water source that one wouldn’t want to anger.

It didn’t take me much of a leap of the imagination to play on the fluidity of this being, to tap into the darker undercurrents that sweep away the protagonist in my story. As a child (and something that has persisted into adulthood) I’ve always had a deep, abiding fear of water where I cannot see the bottom. What else do I share the river with when I go swimming? Will cold, fish-pale hands reach up from the depths to drag me under? I’m the one who sits on the bank while my friends cavort in the mountain pool. Unless the water is crystalline (which isn’t the case with most Cape watercourses due to high tannin contents) I simply refuse to swim. Logically, I understand that there is nothing in the water more malicious than hidden rocks and submerged branches. I have nothing to fear, right?

Rivers are life in this dry land, yet the water itself presents unpredictability, danger. Perhaps our older generations personified the rivers, in order to give a name and known qualities to the water courses. Sometimes the rivers dwindle to nothing during drought. Sometimes nature rages and brings down a torrential flood. To have some sort of entity to propitiate was a way to gain a a modicum of control over this force of nature.

 

Truthfully, we’ll never know. These days we dam our rivers, divert them or fill in our wetlands. Nature bows to our whims. We ignore her at our own peril.

Personally, I immerse myself in the magic of the beauty of nature, and love asking, “What if?” and take the story from there. And no, I won’t go swimming with you.

Nerine Dorman is a South African creative who loves to tell stories. You can follow her on Twitter @nerinedorman.

Further reading:

If you’re curious, feel free to see this news article about the Karoo Mermaid: http://www.news24.com/Travel/Mermaids-in-the-Karoo-20120430

And more on the Uniondale Hitchhiker: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uniondale,_Western_Cape

Here’s something on Nyami Nyami: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nyami_Nyami

 

 

Proudly powered by WordPress