#ALICE BROOKES REDDIT MOVIE#
#ALICE BROOKES REDDIT PLUS#

Within a very short space of time I was totally absorbed in the story of a young man in the thick of a foreign war. There are scenes I remember vividly, and others that have surprised me characters who are like old friends or colleagues, and others who I had totally forgotten.

#ALICE BROOKES REDDIT MOVIE#

The book is full of familiar echoes, like a movie rewatched after several years. Rereading it now has been an interesting experience.

#ALICE BROOKES REDDIT PLUS#

It ended up coming out under the title Lord of Stone from Cosmos Books in the US in the late 1990s, and then I republished it through infinity plus a few years ago. After that, it was a difficult book to place вЂ“ for a variety of reasons, one of which was that it didnвЂ™t fit any neat publishing categories, being neither mainstream nor out and out fantasy. The novel was a very near miss, with interest from a major publisher taking it right up to the point where it was listed in their Forthcoming Titles catalogue, but internal changes at the company before signatures hit the contract led to it falling through the gaps. Early drafts went by the title Scar Tissue, and my lead character was called Blair, in acknowledgement of George Orwell, whose Homage to Catalonia was one of the big influences on the setting and dramatic tensions. ItвЂ™s an idea thatвЂ™s been explored elsewhere, of course, but this was my take on it: a story set in the tail end and aftermath of a brutal civil war, where some people rally around faith while others question any kind of god who might allow such carnage. Like that fantasy novel about the death of fantasy and belief. IвЂ™m not intending to slavishly reread every word IвЂ™ve ever written, but there are some interesting concepts back there. What would it be like to re-read some of them? Would I find that it all came rushing back and itвЂ™d be something akin to that umpteenth editing pass where youвЂ™re sick of the words youвЂ™ve written and donвЂ™t believe anyone might find them even vaguely interesting? Or might that distance actually allow me to read the books with fresh eyes? IвЂ™ve written a lot of fiction over the years, and now IвЂ™m very far-removed from actually writing those early books. But I genre-hopped and never quite settled вЂ“ and probably had a far more interesting career as a result.ДЄnyway, this is a rather long-winded introduction to an idea that occurred to me recently. Hell, if IвЂ™d even stuck a little more closely to a single genre groove my career would have been very different. No regrets, but my career would have been very different. If IвЂ™d chosen to follow up that first novel with a direct sequel, a top US publisher was willing to publish me at the top of their list, but I held to my artistic principles and followed my muse. I followed this with a horror novel that never sold, and then a high-SF duology, and then a fantasy novel about the death of fantasy (and therefore one that didnвЂ™t feature a lot of actual fantasy), and then a contemporary crime novel. Taking my own career as an example, I started out a little over thirty years ago with a gritty, anguished post-cyberpunk thriller. ThatвЂ™s good advice for anyone wanting to write their best work, but not necessarily good career guidance. One of the most often-repeated pieces of advice to writers is that you should write the book you would want to read, rather than chasing some idea of what readers might be looking for.

Alice brookes reddit