RSS Tulagi Hotel http://www.tulagihotel.com/blog.asp en 2 http://www.tulagihotel.com/blog.asp?blog=1
The main feature of this book is of course the extraordinary love and affection that Winston Churchill found in Clementine Hozier. There are few couples at the top of the ruling classes in this world who have found a relationship that sees them through the good and the bad times: Margaret and Dennis Thatcher, Ronald Reagan with his Nancy, and Mikhail Gorbachev with Raisa Gorbacheva spring to mind. I do declare though that the Churchills take the cake. Clementine realized early on that Winston was an exceptional man and he would change the world, but only if he had a home to call his own and a balanced life. She set out to provide just that, and she did it so well that Winston was able to steer full steam ahead through times of peace and war.

This is not to say the Churchills did not have their adversities in life, far from it. Besides losing one daughter to sickness at the age of three, their other children provided ample problems all through their lives, and the author is very balanced in her delivery of these events in the Churchills' life. In fact, it is in a way cathartic to see that even if you rule the remains of an empire, you still have to deal with an unruly son whose ego was second only to his father's, and who had such trouble locating his place in the world.

This book also excels in the description of upper-echelon life in the late Victorian period into the Roaring Twenties and the post-war era. It is nothing short of revelatory to see how behind the facades, men are cuckolded with glee and women are thrust into societal sidelights through the unbelievable extramarital affairs of their husbands. It seems that many marriages were entered into for all the wrong reasons such as money, prestige, family ties or simple coercion.

Another feature that gets much air time in the book is the role of money in the said circles. Take Blenheim, the Churchills' family estate, a vast mammoth of a building in dire need of funds for repair and upkeep. The solution by the then Duke? Marry money. It's fine, because the mother of the bride-to-be had long been of the opinion that her daughter should be a Duchess. So, Sunny Marlborough and Consuelo Vanderbilt got married only to find very quickly that they were exact opposites in any issue imaginable. Sure, the next generation heir was produced, but the heart-rending story of these two unhappy people has been delivered by the author in a delicate vein.

WHy read this book? First, because it sheds light on Winston Churchill the man instead of WC the PM. Second, because few books have such a wide cast of characters, and still form a coherent narrative. And third, because this is the best book I have read so far that makes you understand just how the posturing, pomp, and circumstance of Victorian England actually operated, and how the influx of American money princesses changed things. This is a highly entertaining read and you will have much fun picturing people running into their mistresses in the company of another mistress while on the run from their wives. And vice versa.

And you will see that there is such a thing as true love.]]> Sun, 21 Apr 2013 14:34:00 http://www.tulagihotel.com/blog.asp?blog=2
My father was a home movie buff to the extent of mixing musical scores to his 20 minute movies (Wagner for the movie "To Austria and back by car" etc.) and hammering a hole in a wall between two rooms to be able to project from there, cinema-wise. He would have been crazy about the new way of making digital movies with the limitless editing capabilities and various delivery methods, but he passed away before seeing the old home movies on DVD.

I find it absolutely wonderful that there still are sites where you can buy this film stock and have it developed too. My Bolex projector still runs, I have a spare lamp, and if that one fails, I can buy one online from a small company that makes special lamps like that. The Internet is wonderful.

I have bought a roll a year since 2011. When the movie returns from Wittner, we watch it on the projector, then send it to be scanned. That service is only 20 euros per roll, and then it is very easy to edit the movie into a coherent one.

It is amazing how real 8mm film sends you back in time. Last summer our son was about to leave for the Army to do his national service, and I shot some film of him grilling sausages, and then another scene of him returning for his first furlough. The ambiance is magically transformed into something from the 60s and there's this indefinable sense of peeking into history, merely because the movie is silent and the colors are so full.

But as a historical fiction author, my job is to do exactly the opposite. I should take views and vistas from the past, and deliver them to the modern reader so that they don't seem vignetted and shot in film, complete with light leaks and dust and streaks, but as if they were watching their fellow men and women today, in full personal view.

This is sometimes hard to do, and yet, at other times I get feedback from readers that they saw the scene in their own mind as fresh as if they were there themselves. It is times and comments like that which make it all worthwhile. I was especially touched when a reader of Tulagi Hotel wrote a short review on Amazon, explaining that the book had taken him back to his own memories when he took part in World War 2 in the Pacific.

Of course, when it doesn't work, it's not very good reading. We all have read historical fiction that just doesn't sound right and doesn't deliver the immersive experience, and I am sure I have written such stuff myself. In that case it is back to the writing chambers, to think hard about how to take the saturated colors and Technicolor images and jerky camera movement of age-old films, and transfer that to the high-definition life we live today.

It is a challenge, and I enjoy it almost as much as listening to the spring-driven Bolex whirring and capturing our life on film.]]> Sun, 07 Apr 2013 009:24:00 http://www.tulagihotel.com/blog.asp?blog=3
If you know someone who might be interested in Tulagi Hotel, ie. someone who goes for meticulously researched historical fiction with a little romance and way too many airplanes in it, please ask them to do this:

1) Go to Amazon, and search the Kindle store for "World War 2 novel"

2) Find Tulagi Hotel in the results, click straight through, and buy it.

Now, this process, if done this way, should push the visibility of Tulagi in search results.

I am in no way against purchasing in via the natural method, of course, but... you know.

End of direct marketing. I will provide a regular blog entry soon. Probably to do with supernatural issues. Or 3D design and books. Or something ... completely... different.]]> Thu, 28 Mar 2013 19:17:00 http://www.tulagihotel.com/blog.asp?blog=4
Mason used to dream of flying as a kid, and he experimented with jumping off roofs and other high places. It was not until he enrolled in the US Army's Helicopter School in 1964 that he managed any serious time in the air though. He wastes no time in getting to the thick of it, and he takes us through the school in vivid detail. Learning to fly helicopters is not for everyone, but Mason manages the craft and graduates just in time - for Vietnam.

He is deployed with the 1st Cavalry Regiment in August 1965 into the cauldron of war. He decides he wants to fly 'slicks' as opposed to 'guns', which means he flies unarmed troop-carrying Bell UH-1 Iroquois helicopters. He takes troops to battle, evacuates casualties, flies cargo all over the country, and acts as a 3D chauffeur for a major conducting clandestine operations with his grunts.

From the first moment of being shot at while landing troops, to the final flight before his tour of duty expires, he allows us to board his trusty Huey and takes off with us in the back. The invaluable instructions of the more experienced pilots, ranging from how to maintain position while flying in a hundred-ship formation to how to use the Huey as a lawn mower when landing on top of a hill that is sprouting bamboo, keep him safe and sound.

Except that the strain of flying around the clock if need be, and the toll of seeing people shot down, and having to land the Huey in the river so that they can just wash off the blood of evacuated grunts begins to take a terrible toll on him. When he is discharged, he finds it hard to readjust to the civilized world after the madhouse of Vietnam, and in a short epilogue tells us how things went after the war.

What is the enduring legacy of this book? It must be the way Mason frankly and candidly tells us everything that went on during his tour. He doesn't glorify war, or his pilot friends, or what he did when he was there. He merely recounts the life of a man who wanted to fly helicopters and was issued the best of them to fly in war. His tales, sometimes funny, sometimes tragic, sometimes even incredible, never cease to drive home the message that war is a terrible thing.

This book is not to be missed by anyone who is into history, especially aviation or military history. It is one of the classic books in the genre.]]> Tue, 26 Feb 2013 12:44:00 http://www.tulagihotel.com/blog.asp?blog=5
The FBI is an iconic organization; even if it is an American feature, it is recognized and remembered around the world. When I grabbed this book, I expected to learn many details of the crime-busting the FBI has done, you know, the Dillingers and the Bonnies & Clydes, and how the Mafia was tackled.

There is some of that in this book. But much, much more this book focuses on the blatant civil rights abuses the FBI has committed all through its existence.

From the very beginning the FBI was designed to be the cutting edge of the law, the final frontier that would maintain peace in the country and protect the American citizen from the threat of communism and organized crime. Well, if the aim was good, the methods used to achieve that were definitely outside the tool box allowed by the law.

I was very surprised to see how J. Edgar Hoover was able to keep his outfit untouchable by such boring people as a succession of Attorney Generals. Some of these condoned his wholly and totally unconstitutional actions, and some just feared him and let him keep attacking the civil rights of the people he deemed to be threats to society. This bunch of people was so heterogeneous that it was really stretching my imagination even to understand who were being targeted by Hoover's FBI.

Then during WW2, the FBI enlarged its operations way beyond its intended purpose and installed agents everywhere. Some of these actually managed to do useful work, but the quality of the agents sent out was not very high; consequently the results were more often negligible. If you want to compare the FBI's operations to those of the CIA, see "Spycraft" by Wallace and Melton. The juxtaposition of FBI and CIA is actually interesting, especially since neither of them have managed to sit comfortably within the framework of the law.

The rest of the book is pretty much taken up by the fight against global terrorism, and even in that part of the book, incompetence and turf wars are much more on the scene than successful operations. Considering the amount of manpower and the sheer torrent of dollars issued to the FBI, I had to collect my eyebrows from my neck many times. Single agents, hard-working, loyal, and true to the law, have produced good results, but bungling chiefs and the incessant inter-departmental squibbling have wasted much of the benefits.

Yet to me, the biggest worry this book raises is this:

I just reviewed "Wiseguy" by Nicholas Pileggi, and was appalled by the way any regular citizen can become a target for the Mafia. The society of gangsters has taken on the society of citizens and has become superior to it, rendering judges and politicians corrupt, and financing their way out of any legal consequences.

And now, when I read this book, I saw how the one of the arms of the establishment have attacked the society of citizens from the other direction, stripping ordinary citizens of even basic civil rights based on hearsay and sometimes not even that. It is terrible to read of how the mere hunch of associating with Communists was enough to land one in jail and in serial court cases which were unwinnable, because the FBI had no proof, and the citizen was not told why he was being accused and of what.

As a final comment, I have to say this: I see the freedom so much touted by so many Americans in grave jeopardy from many directions. Maybe it would be good to finally issue a charter for the FBI and see to it that they stick to it.]]> Mon, 14 Jan 2013 005:26:00 http://www.tulagihotel.com/blog.asp?blog=6
Henry Hill fell in love with the Mafia way of life as a kid, and he stuck to it until the bitter end - or rather, until he had two choices. Either join the Federal Witness Protection Program, or face the music with the mobsters he had been living his life since he was twelve. The music would have killed him.

Pileggi's book traces the life of Henry Hill through all his scheming and swindling, from earning a few pennies delivering sandwiches to poker players to stealing cigarette trucks, and on to stealing millions of dollars' worth of cash and other goods from Kennedy Airport. It is sobering to see how anything is stealable in their world, and how little faith these people have in ownership.

It is also hair-raising to read this book and learn how these mobsters would just identify a target, be it Italian scarves, a truck of booze, or a load of mink furs, and they'd just go and grab it. Sometimes there is assistance from the people who have been charged with delivering the truck - they may be in on the hit and get a little bit of the money, but more often they just enter the truck, tell the driver they know where he lives, and drop the hapless guy off the truck by the highway and disappear with his truck.

It is this disregard for other people that makes this such a chilling book. In this world of wiseguys, all is theirs for the taking. In fact, it made me think that if this is still the case, that anything you happen to possess that is of interest to the Mob can be taken away from you, the much-touted American concept of freedom is not very valid. At least you're not free to own things, and if you try to put your case to the law, Hill provides ample examples of how both the police and the judicial system has members on the take.

And when you finally get to the end, and see how Hill escapes a bullet in the head (that was issued to everyone else who knew of the Lufthansa heist) to become a Federal employee, you wonder... is this all okay and correct that this should happen? People are killed en route to this, millions of dollars of property and cash are redistributed among wiseguys, and yet the prime mover becomes another man in lieu of the one he never was. I am not sure.

Read this book to learn about the business of being a wiseguy, but for splatter and flying kidneys, read "The Ice Man: Confessions of a Mafia Contract Killer" instead.
]]> Thu, 03 Jan 2013 10:40:00 http://www.tulagihotel.com/blog.asp?blog=7
So, I gave in to temptation and went to see The Hobbit. Having seen 1½ of the LOTR trilogy, I knew what to expect. To a point.

I have a long history with Tolkien. I first read Lord of the Rings when I was given the classic 1960s Houghton & Mifflin boxed paperback set for helping a friend of my sister to move house. I got into the book very deep, and loved every moment. In fact, I happened to find Pink Floyd's "Animals" at the same time I first read LOTR, and to this day I cannot listen to the song "Pigs" without thinking of Orcs.

I then went into Silmarillion with the same gusto as I accorded to the trilogy, and loved it even better. The High Elves and all the rest of the cast just resonated in my mind and I came out of the book with my head tingling - this was literature at its best. I still like Silmarillion best of all his works.

And then there was the Hobbit. I had to take an exam in Childrens' Literature at the University, along with seven other books, so I read it a little fast at first, but returned to it in the summer. I found it a very enjoyable introduction to LOTR and a great book on its own, as an adventure for all ages.

Now it is out in glorious 2D, even gloriouser 3D, and the gloriousest HDR 48 frames per second. Given my inability to stomach 3D in movies, I went to see the regular version. I have to say, I got my money's worth even in that old format.

The thing is that it is simply overflowing with the magic of CGI.

Ever since Tron, movies have fought to have the biggest guns in computer-generated imagery. Just remember Terminator, Star Wars, and all the other movies which boldly state how many processors were used to create so many gigapixels and full-CGI movie frames. If you think of it, today's kiddie TV shows have more CGI than many a full-length movie had in the 90's.

And it is just this onslaught of CGI that wears me out. When you do motion capture on ten people, you can easily turn that into a hundred differently moving characters, and those hundred become 48,000 goblins with a click of the mouse.

In this movie, the excess of everything is the norm. It's truly a derivative of the LOTR movies, where we got to admire the wondrous plains of Rohan, the dungeons of Moria, and the sulphurous wasteland of Moria, all created in 3D. Now, after we leave the sedate Shire behind, there is nary a slow moment, unless our protagonists sleep.

The first attack of the Orcs is believable, but the trouble with the rock giants having the rematch of Ali vs Frazier is that while the rock giants move well enough, there's so much debris flying around that no one could survive. Why? Because the computer that rendered it was the size of an aircraft carrier and it could do that.

All the rest of the mass scenes pay homage to Lion King - remember the scene where the gnus rush down the canyon - but the problem is that there are simply too many Orcs and Goblins and whatever sundry baddies Middle Earth houses. It would be better to have just 1,000 Orcs instead of as many as your rendering engine will produce without exploding.

I also did not think it is necessary to provide Rivendell with so many waterfalls from the mountainside. At the moment it looks like there's a gigantic dam just behind the horizon and it is about to burst. They are absolutely lovely to see, and the rendering power it takes to make them is astonishing, but two or three would have been quite enough, thank you.

That aside, I think Mr Jackson and his screenwriters have done well with the storyline. Tolkien's original work, of course, is a story full of goodies, and it is so well written too that all they have had to do is to pick the cherries. The dwarves are a lovable lot of hard-headed warriors, somewhat cartoonishly moulded, and a little too indestructible, but it bodes well for the next two episodes. And it is always great to see Christopher Lee, Ian McKellen, and Hugo Weaving in one scene.

All in all, I was 80% happy with the result. I would have liked it better were it not for the CGI overkill, but we are probably so inundated with it that it takes a lot of CGI to make any impact.]]> Thu, 27 Dec 2012 13:36:00 http://www.tulagihotel.com/blog.asp?blog=8
When Britain prepared for and then joined WW2, it had enough pilots to fight the war but not enough pilots to ferry aircraft to the squadrons. Hence the ATA (Air Tansport Auxiliary) was founded, and soon it was seen that more pilots would be needed for it than were readily available.

This crack was forcefully hammered wide open by Pauline Gower in the UK and Jackie Cochran in the US, and women entered the ATA. Originally they were allowed to fly docile aircraft such as the Avro Anson, but bit by bit Gower managed to grow the stable of airplanes her pilots were allowed to fly. Soon she had pilots taking to the skies in Hurricanes and Spitfires, and eventually gargantuan Lancasters and B-24 Liberators.

This book brings us delightful stories of such classic aviation heroines as Diana Barnato Walker, who flew a Tempest when it shed its air scoop and much of the lower part of the plane with it. The squadron officer who was to receive the plane chided her for delivering just half of the plane. There's Maureen Dunlop, who exited a Barracuda just as the reporters from Picture Post took her picture (see [...] for that great shot) and who flew many a hazardous delivery. And of course, Ms Duhalde, known as Chile for her native land, who promised to knock a Polish woman pilot's teeth off for jumping the landing pattern.

These ladies delivered thousands of airplanes but also died in the rapidly changing British weather, when they were surprised by a cloud, or flew into mountainsides when they became lost. The balance between a successful delivery and a fiery death in a crash is well told in this book. What is also well told is the incredible callousness of the all-male military aviation establishment, which refused to give the women pilots even rudimentary instrument flight training, which resulted in many deaths directly attributable to loss of spatial awareness.

The author has done a good job in presenting the big picture, but it could be structured better. Now we often are led from one situation into another which has no other connection to the grand narrative than the person we started with, and that makes it a little hard to follow the action. Also, in the Kindle edition, quotes were not indicated: many times you'd start reading a fist person narrative right after a third person viewpoint and it takes some time to figure out who is talking.

Nevertheless, these minor quibbles aside, these ladies deserved this book and all publicity they could possibly get. Now in their nineties, some of them still remember the ATA days as the best of their lives, and after reading this book, you will understand why.]]> Sun, 02 Dec 2012 13:09:00 http://www.tulagihotel.com/blog.asp?blog=9
Susanne can be seen at http://bit.ly/SwT9eQ

I’m instructed to tell you all about my next book by answering these questions and then to tag five other authors about their Next Big Thing. So here I go!

**

-What is the working title of your next book?

I have tentatively called it "Willow Hill 3D". Willow Hill is a sanatorium which has a real life counterpart.

-Where did the idea come from for the book?

It is a result of two things. I write speculative fiction and most of my work has a little twist of the paranormal, and on the other hand, I am a full time University lecturer with 3D in my domain. One day, as I was working in Blender, the open source 3D software I teach, it occurred to me it would be very spooky if something appeared in your 3D model that you did not insert there yourself, and from there on it was regular plotting.

-What genre does your book fall under?

I have not yet decided whether it is Young Adult or regular Mainstream Horror. Both would have advantages, but I must first work out the internal operation of the story to see which genre would be better for it.

-Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition?

Ah- As with all my books, I would like to see newcomers instead of the old hands. Of course, since the story happens at a University and it features a certain lecturer who is tall and exceedingly handsome, George Clooney would get to play, well... me.

-What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?

A student, working on his thesis, creates a 3D representation of a sanatorium with a history of haunting, and in doing so, is contacted by the dead staff of the sanatorium.

-Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?

-As I am now in the stables of Fingerpress in the UK, I am happy to report they would consider this book.

-How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript?

-I don't have it yet in a manuscript form, but the synopsis is quite complete and the remaining writing would take me about a year or eighteen months. Having a full-time job slows down the writing.

-What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?

"The Shining" does spring to mind, but my style would be close to the old English ghost story tales. Also, in nonfiction, John G. Fuller's two books, "The Airmen who Would Not Die" and "The Ghost of 29 Megacycles".

-Who or what inspired you to write this book?

Two things actually. All of Fuller's work is very readable, laconic, but very much fact based; I would like to create fiction that works in the same format and keeps the reader both at bay and at the edge of the seat. Then again, I've seen people create stunning 3D models using Blender, displayed at BlenderArtists.com, and I wanted to see if I could connect the two worlds with some paranormal bridges.

-What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest?

I hope to bring in some detail of how you work in 3D and maybe encourage some readers to try their own hand - Blender is free and while it is not the easiest thing to learn, there are oodles of free tutorials available.

---

Here are some other authors I’ve tagged to tell you about their Next Big Thing!

Diane Nelson - http://bit.ly/gP1uj1
Greta van der Rol - http://bit.ly/U9jHit
Bill Kirton - http://bit.ly/xKfvNE
Kimberly Menozzi - http://bit.ly/StP3kh

Do make sure you drop by to see their worlds.]]> Wed, 07 Nov 2012 17:08:00 http://www.tulagihotel.com/blog.asp?blog=10
When Diane Nelson told her authors that she was going to move from publishing to editing, we all felt nothing but gratefulness toward her. She did an amazing job and worked really hard at Pfoxmoor Publishing, but as a former President of Finland, Mr Paasikivi, said - the wise always acknowledge facts.

At that point then the question arose, whether to self-publish or whether I should try to get onto the roster of another publisher. I pondered upon this for a week or two, and then I decided that for me, a publisher would be the better option.

Going solo would have been nice in its own right, but two things spoke against it. First, I am a full time lecturer with quite a lot of students on the courses and as thesis candidates, so the time I can assign to sales and marketing is limited. And as my plan still is to get translated, being represented by a publisher gives me some small edge in these efforts.

In any case, I contacted some of my author friends whose opinions were much valued, and through these contacts I started discussions with one well-known house. Due to issues of circumstance and timing, these did not lead to a contract, but it was during this time I was contacted by Fingerpress, a small but very energetic publisher in England.

It turned out that my books would be well suited to the publishing style of Fingerpress, and my discussions with Matt Stephens, the publisher, went really well right from the start. In no time at all, I had a contract and my books were being edited for re-issue. A new cover was put together and while it is very different from the previous one, it does represent the colors and locations and events of the book well too.

So the situation now is this: Tulagi Hotel is out on Kindle both at Amazon UK and US. It will be out in paperback within a couple of weeks and also available from Amazon in that format. Filtered Light and Other Stories will be out on Kindle soon.

The links are

Amazon US: http://amzn.to/UGYqh0

Amazon UK: http://amzn.to/PSGTSa

I am happy to send out review copies to interested bloggers or reviewers - please mail me at heikki dot hietala at sabulo dot com, and we'll get you a book.]]> Thu, 04 Oct 2012 13:58:00 http://www.tulagihotel.com/blog.asp?blog=11
While I was very sad to learn of this decision, I fully understand the rationale and support Diane. She did sterling work as a publisher, and us authors in her stable (John Booth, Bill Kirton, Maria Kuroschchepova, and others) felt we were being lovingly looked after. Our books were always picture-perfect in layout and spelling, and Diane would stop at nothing to ensure the best of service for her authors. I, and the others, cannot thank Diane enough.

So, what next?

I'm very lucky in having made many friends through writing. Many of these people have gone on to self-publishing their books, and they have made it into selling thousands of books. Some of these have told me to go ahead and self-publish Tulagi Hotel and Filtered Light myself, and I did consider that for a while. However, my situation is a little different from these friends, so I remained looking for a new publisher.

I am glad to report I have found a house which is interested in having me on their lists. I will let you know, as soon as the negotiations are over, which publisher this is, but I can't do that just yet. Their list of authors and books is extensive, and it looks like a perfect match for my style and genres. I hope to be able to reveal more very soon.

And then what, with the new publisher?

First, I hope this move will gain visibility for my books. Just before Diane shut down her outfit, I was getting good sales on Filtered Light, and surprisingly, on Tulagi too, which means some cross-pollination must have happened there. Therefore I remain confident that when the books become available again, I may get the traction back and see a little surge in sales.

I also have a dream regarding Tulagi. I mean, so many people have come back to me and told me it is 'cinematic' and that they see it as a fifties movie when they read it. Looking at the current crop of movies, you can see that every few years a story comes along that is based on WW2, and even if I say so myself, I could easily see Tulagi produced as a movie.

While it appears there are no flying OS2U Kingfishers around anymore, a replica would be easy to produce. The air battles would not pose a problem these days, what with the giant leaps made in computer graphics. Sure, a major part of the movie would demand heavy CGI, as the air combat of the day called for hundreds of planes of various types in the air, but that is a negligible cost today.

The key characters would have to played by unknown young actors, but there's a few spots for Clooney-rate people. All I need is mr Spielberg's phone number, but it seems to be unlisted, and none of my friends have it. In case you know someone in the business, I'd love a chat with them.

Is this stupid daydreaming? Sure it is. But the entire book is the result of a stupid daydream, as is its publication first by Diiarts and then by Pfoxmoor, and as is the publication of my short stories as Filtered Light. I never had any certainty these things would come to pass, but they did. Getting Tulagi made into a movie is a dream now, but maybe, just maybe, with a little luck, it becomes reality. You may be surprised at some point.

PS: When I republish my books, I would love it if you could drop a little review for them. I saved the reviews of the previous edition, and will mail the writers the texts, but new ones would be very welcome.]]> Sat, 18 Aug 2012 13:46:00 http://www.tulagihotel.com/blog.asp?blog=12
So, we have established the fact that the church organ is indeed haunted. It plays by itself without human intervention. Surely this must mean the inanimate object harbors paranormal forces. The concept of haunting is very interesting to me, since it is so much part of popular culture. The stories of haunted houses and objects abound in the folk tales of every nation on the planet.

If you check the Internet for the "most haunted house" in England, you'll see it is the Borley rectory. Buildings associated with the Church have always been staple places for ghostly activity. Maybe it's because of the role of the Church as the gateway between this world and the next, and the sacraments it has to keep the living apart from the dead.

But does it always have to be malevolent? Is it not possible to have a positive force haunting something? This type of haunting is actually what I am trying to build, when I let Stephen Newman hear the first tones of "Three Blind Mice" in a vacant church. This he first takes to be an ominous thing, but when he discusses it with the old priest, the whole idea behind the self-activated organ becomes clear.

Besides haunting, we can find the ubiquitous concept of dead people hanging around, waiting for someone to die, so as to take him or her across the threshold and into the world beyond our own. I have taken this idea a little further and suggest that the people of the close-knit village, who eventually die, will wait for others; and to signal their presence in the village still, they learn to play the organ.

Now, the young priest believes this to be something that he needs to guard himself against and prays in the company of the old priest. He consoles the young curate - there's no need to pray. This is another time when I suggest that merely being dead doesn't turn one into something evil. Quite on the contrary. If one was a pillar of society while alive, like Farmer Miles of Woollenham, why would he be automatically something sinister after passing away? Or why should they lose their sense of humor?

There's a magnificent book called "The Airmen who would not die" by John G. Fuller. It is the single best documented case of survival after death, when the men who perished in the crash of the dirigible R-101 came through a medium and explained in grisly detail what happened when the airship crashed in Belgium. These men bring not only their information, but they bring it in their own ways, their own words, and with their own sense of humor.

Back to the story. When the two priests are in the dark church all alone, and the organ plays the delicate tune by Bach ("Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring"), the young priest accepts the old vicar's view: as below, so above. If the priests take care of their villagers in life, the villagers will repay in kind, only in the hereafter.

A little later the old vicar explains that his predecessor stole a sizable sum from the parish, and when the organ played at his passing, it was no gentle tune, but "Confutatis, maledictis!" which is a strongly-worded part of Mozart's Requiem, reserved for wrongdoers. It is at this point that I offer the second piece that is in place to give a creepy feeling to the reader. As the Reverend Redstone, the thief, passed away, his successor felt a presence in the church that wasn't God.

The old priest soon suffers a stroke, and dies afterwards. Why, then, does the organ play...

"Blest, I may now look on thee, oh, my native land, and gladly greet thy pleasant pastures"...?

This is the Pilgrims' Choir from Tannhäuser. In this scene, Tannhäuser is shown to receive the Lord's blessing and forgiveness for his muddled love life. As the music plays in the church where Stephen stands, he understands a photograph he saw in the hands of the old vicar. It also transpires that the old vicar had some sort of affiliation with a lady in his youth, and that the love, which he had to forsake, is now atoned.

This piece of music is also simply wonderful to listen to. I had some other pieces in mind, notably Kyrie from Mozart's Requiem, but the Confutatis worked better in the dramatic scene. I could also have inserted another piece by Wagner, the Flying Dutchman, because the theme of being cursed to sail the seas of the world eternally could also be taken to mean reincarnation. But, as it happened, I merely liked this bit the best, and I think it fits the theme nicely.

It also brings us back to the genesis of the story itself, the funeral, and my strong emotions as I played this at the interment of my father's ashes. This event took place on a sunny July day at a graveyard with tall pine trees swaying in the wind, and white clouds sailing slowly across the blue skies.

To me this story means the most of all my stories, but I can't really say why. You be the judge as to what it says to you.]]> Thu, 19 Jul 2012 14:44:00 http://www.tulagihotel.com/blog.asp?blog=13
The 18 story package has nine stories of speculative fiction, and the other nine are flash fiction, humor, and real life, with a couple of Scifi entries for good measure. Speculative fiction is my favorite genre these days, because I like stories and movies wehere there is a little element of the eerie, especially if you can't just put your finger on it.

I have written a 6,800 word story called "Wind in the Pipes". I stuck to the name, despite some efforts by my British friends to tell me it suggests something you get after eating lots of peas. It does not (indignant humph). It describes the story well, since the main events take place around the organ in a rural and medieval English church.

You can read the story at http://bit.ly/MgUj7I and you may want to read it first, before venturing into the text below. There are some spoilers there.

The whole idea for this story came to me at the funeral of my late father. He had requested as much music and as little talk as possible. In specific, he had asked the organist to play "The Pilgrims' Choir" from Tannhäuser at the event. As it turned out, the organist declined, and we got some other music instead. However, I found a reel tape from 1966 where my father himself had recorded the said piece as a choral arrangement, and I was able to salvage that on an MP3 player. I played it when we interred his ashes.

So, the idea of organ pipes playing by themselves is very directly from my own life, because at the funeral I concentrated on the organ music to keep calm. I could have written out the story straight into modern day Finland, but I wanted a more atmospheric time and place for it. At first I loosely based it in the inter-war years in Britain, but very soon the timing was fixed into 1942. This is because I wanted to have that damp, dark feeling into the opening scene, so as to lay the ground for the rest of the story. And if you have an insufferable need to say I am fixated with World War 2, go into the corner and sit down.

To tie the location and time in place, I have the Germans attacking the village during the famous Baedeker Raids. These bombing raids that took place between April and June, 1942, on York, Norwich, Canterbury, Bath and Exeter. The name comes from a German propagandist who claimed Germany "shall go out and bomb every building in Britain marked with three stars in the Baedeker Guide". To be frank, most of the raids took place during the night, but it is not beyond reason that one of the early morning bombers could be separated from the attack wave, and hit the school to kill 20 boys (needed for the storyline later.)

Okay - the young priest, Stephen Newman, straight out of his studies and a stint at the Diocese, arrives at the parish, late in the evening, wet and cold and miserable. Some may say it's a cliched start, but then again - cliches abound in literature, it's how you use them that makes the difference. I am sure the old priest - young priest coule is second only to the good cop - bad cop setup, but I hope I managed to use the main characters well enough. By bringing the young priest straight from the Diocese into a rural parish I could also import the information that the old priest's church was haunted, and that the higher echelons were aware and worried by it.

I spent quite a lot of time establishing the relationship
between the two priests. This is because I needed the younger one to trust the vicar later, when the odd events begin to manifest themselves in the parish church. Also, the fact that the parish of Little Fawnton was called Little Haunton in the Diocese had to be built into the mindset of the young priest, and that takes some time. As he comes to the parish, he needed to be wary, but it's not until page 5 that anything out of the ordinary happens. To some, this may be too slow, but I hope you bear with me.

Then we come to the events themselves. I am not a fan of out-and-out ghosts that are only brought in to scare people. Instead, I would love to be able to write in such a vein that the eerie and out-of-the-ordinary feeling gradually builds itself through little incidents that cannot readily be explained away. Therefore, the young priest does not see anyone in the parish church, but the organ plays on itself. He hears some tones first, and doesn't understand from where they come, and then hears an almighty blast from the organ, as if someone hit all the keys at once.

That is brought in to scare people.

Another feature in the supernatural that fascinates me is how some people are at ease with ghosts and the supernatural. As I have never had a real experience in the field, I can't tell how I'd act in a situation like that happening on Stephen. I probably would be spooked out of my skin, as I am quite impressionable. But priests are supposed to handle the spirit world too, and Stephen works hard to understand what happens with the organ. The old vicar, then, is entirely at peace with his automatic musical instrument, because he knows why the pipes play.

I've read quite a lot on ventures into spiritism and reaching out to the spirit world. In "The Scole Experiment", verifiable research showed that during these spiritist experiments, temperatures could drop by ten to fifteen degrees C. If this is so, why wouldn't it be possible that ghosts, or entities, or spirits, could alter the air pressure in organ pipes? After all, that's what causes it to make the sound. So, my ghosts make themselves known to the real world by causing wind in the pipes. Once Stephen understands who these ghosts are, and why they play, it is easier for him to be at ease with them.


I will post the second instalment for this in a week or so. Stay tuned.]]> Wed, 11 Jul 2012 13:53:00 http://www.tulagihotel.com/blog.asp?blog=14
Schama is very well versed in American history and has done his research meticulously. He takes the reader across the vast landscape of Americanism and conclusively shows how that concept is one based on eternal discovery, eternal progress, and the American ideal of finding your happiness through hard-earned wealth.

The dark side of this, then, is the at points ruthless behavior against those who were there first, or who did something before. The Native Americans are a case in point.

He is also wonderfully clear in his thinking and how he presents the unbroken arch of American thinking from the Founding Fathers to Barack Obama. This he achieves through the careful selection of men (and women) of action who have played a crucial, but many times forgotten, role in the history of the country.

I was especially enthralled by his delivery of the tale of the military family Meigs, starting from the aptly named Return Jonathan Meigs and finishing it with the current General.

Such tales, told through one individual, but illuminating a vast landscape of people and events, are the absolute best part of this book. His talent for tying together ideals, ideas, and actions of people that at first seem to have nothing to do with each other is also considerable.

You as the reader stand to benefit much from all these details, laid out in good order and in a very comprehensive manner.

Now the bad news, and why this is not a 5 star book.

Schama gets so carried away by his experiences and ideas that his prose sometimes gallops off into the rich pasture of Latin words. This, and the tendency of using sub-clauses and sub-sub-clauses, causes the prose to become hard to read.

In my edition's back cover, Ferguson in Financial Times compares Schama's prose to Kerouac. A fair comparison, but one that also makes for passages that have to be read many times. I used a dictionary more times with this book than with any other in years.

But to sum this up, if you are interested in why America is what it is, read this book, and have the dictionary handy. ]]> Sun, 20 May 2012 19:53:00 http://www.tulagihotel.com/blog.asp?blog=15
Be that as it may, I do have work in the pipeline.

At last check, my trusty word-count cum progress indicator Excel file shows that my current short story base stands at 29,955 words. This is divided into ten WIP stories, but there is one much larger than the others. It is called "Nueva Congo" and it is my first attempt at a novella-length Scifi story.

It is funny how these stories sometimes start to guide their own development. "Nueva Congo" is the result of a short article on long-hau space trips that I read somewhere. That article dealt with the pressures that would face people on trips to Titan and other far-flung places, when the travel time exceeded a year per direction. Generation Ships, then, have travel times of decades or more. The fact that those who left on the trip and those who eventually end it are of different generations does give rise to many interesting thoughts about such a project.

My own take on the theme doesn't deal with the internal workings of a generation ship as such, but more with the whole feasibility of such a trip, and especially, is such a trip to be made in the first place? Many a night I have pondered upon this theme before going to sleep, and the name of the ship serves as a hint for you - I do not intend the voyage to be smooth and the ship to unload its cargo onto a new colony. But I will leave it at that for now.

The other stories then? There's a sparky one of an old woman who wants a tattoo; a mellow one on the end of a marriage when Alzheimer claims one of the spouses; a short one on a kid who loses a fiver that belongs to the neighbor guy, and my pet project, a horror story called "Synodikon", featuring Ivan the terrible.

This story, for which I have had help from my author friend and PfoxChase colleague Maria Kuroschepova, deals with a list of people who perished in Ivan's lunatic purges, and is a good example of a story that waits patiently to be written, but gets better by the wait. I wanted to write it at one go, but instead it is still at 300 words, waiting for me to come back to it and finish the job. During the hiatus I have changed the focus of the story and honed the ending in my mind, and I believe it is now better.

All that remains is to write it all down...

I have also found that a backlog of ten stories, plus two book ideas, block new story ideas. I haven't added one idea to the palette in six months, and that is simply because I can't keep adding ideas before I get the old ones processed. That's all right, having ideas all the time would be frustrating when I still want to get the old ones written out first.

Stay tuned.]]> Wed, 16 May 2012 15:31:00