Solomon Kane

When I was in London last week, I picked up a copy of The Right Hand of Doom and Other Tales of Solomon Kane by Robert E Howard. This is one of the classily packaged and attractively priced Tales of Mystery & the Supernatural series by Wordsworth Editions.

Why Wordsworth Editions have styled Robert E Howard as R Howard on the cover, I do not know. This is like putting C Lewis or J Tolkien. It is just a bit odd.

I know Robert E Howard from reading his Conan stories when I was a teenager. I first came across Conan the Barbarian in his Marvel Comics version, and then read the paperback books. The covers featured paintings I am a little bit ashamed (but not so much) to admit to having greatly admired. They were by Frank Frazetta. The fearless musclebound barbarian with a nubile slave girl draped round his overdeveloped quads was an exact opposite of my young self in every way. Actually he is quite dissimilar to my present self, come to think of it.

Howard was American: a Depression-era pulp fiction writer, a contemporary (and friend) of H P Lovecraft, and they both contributed to the pulp magazine Weird Tales in the late 20s and early 30s. Howard wrote sword-and-sorcery like Conan, westerns, detectives stories - all sorts of stuff. He put a bullet in his head when he was only thirty.

Solomon Kane also had a Marvel Comics outing apparently - though it passed me by. He is a bizarre creation: a kind of avenging angel in the shape of a sword-wielding 17th Century Puritan. It is all utter nonsense, of course. The historical setting is so lightly sketched as to be all but invisible and the plots lurch about all over the place.

And yet there is something compelling about the way he writes. He grabs you and drags you through his weird, weird world with such demented conviction that in the end it seems easier to just give in and let him get on with it. It certainly makes me want to take another look at his Conan books.

Colonic irritation

I went to London yesterday for a dinner hosted by Bloomsbury at Kettners in Soho. It was Bond themed, so I wore my tux, but couldn't bring myself to wear a bow tie. I didn't look like James Bond; I looked like James Bond's weedy and slightly creepy uncle. So I changed into a flowery shirt and skull bootlace tie and ended up looking like a slightly camp hit man. And what could be more Bond than that?

After a quick wander round bookshops in Covent Garden and Charing Cross road I went to Kettners. I had a quick chat with Adrian Downie who did such a fantastic job of the Tales of Terror website (we talked martial arts and skateboarding injuries before being forcibly separated and sent to different tables) and met up with my editor Helen Szirtes. One of the questions I had at Harrow High School was 'Do you get any help when you write your books?' And of course writers get a lot of help: they get help (mostly uncredited) from editors.

I have been blessed with some really good editors on my books - Anne Clarke on my Hodder books comes to mind, as does Lisa Edwards on my Scholastic books - and I am very, very lucky to have Helen Szirtes looking after me at Bloomsbury. I have learnt a lot from editors, though clearly not so much that it stopped me giving a completely nonsensical definition for the function of a colon when talking to Helen before the meal.

It was like being back at school. I would know what the answer was in my head, but some weird answer would fall out of my mouth. It is probably a condition: stupidity maybe. What I meant to say, of course, was that a colon is used to indicate that what follows it is an explanation or elaboration of what proceeds it. That is, having introduced some topic in more general terms, you can use a colon and go on to explain that same topic in more specific terms.

And of course I'm not quoting this directly from the Penguin Guide to Punctuation. How sad would that be?

Harrowing tales

I don't seem to be able to stop writing awful headings. I spent too long working for newspapers, clearly.

I went to a school in Harrow today as part of the Harrow Words Live festival. No - not that Harrow school - Harrow High School. It is all part of an initiative by Harrow council to get authors into schools - and a good thing it is too. Having said that, I almost cancelled at the last minute because the storms seemed to be playing havoc with the rail system. But actually I got there quicker than I thought I would.

I did two sessions with two groups of children in the huge library and I spoke a bit about myself and writing and then read one of the stories from Uncle Montague's Tales of Terror. They were amazingly attentive for the most part and asked lots of good questions.

As I have said before, school visits are tricky things. It is a weird thing reading to an audience who have not chosen to be there, who might much prefer to be in the drama or cookery lesson they are missing because of you; who, even if they do read, might not ever want to read your work. Who don't know who you are and are not going to hand you their attention on a plate. It is like busking to a crowd who can't simply snort with derision and walk on. They are trapped.

But it does no harm, every now and then, to test your work in this way. Not all books stand or fall on their ability to be read out loud, but Uncle Montague's Tales of Terror are all about storytelling. And however much a child might claim a disinterest in books, most are more then willing to give themselves up to the magic of having something read to them, whatever it may be.

What's the point of illustration?

This is a question I have asked myself many times - usually halfway through an illustration job. But I do think there is a point to illustration. Or at least there can be.

I'm talking here specifically about the illustration of books. There is a school of thought that says that as children get older they need less and less illustration; that they want to read books that look more like the books adults read. Pictures are for kids. Little kids that is.

I don't think this is true. I know it wasn't true for me. Illustrations attracted me to books when I was a child and also encouraged me to read. I have already said that Charles Keeping's illustrations pulled me through Rosemary Sutcliff's dense and complex prose. I have also stated that I loved comics as a boy - and still do. Books for older children do not have to be illustrated of course - but good illustration can make a good book exceptional. But I do not think this is restricted to children.

The astonishing illustrations of Harry Clarke were the lure to first read Edgar Allen Poe (whose work I first came to via Roger Corman movies). It was the illustrated covers of secondhand Penguin Modern Classics that introduced me to F Scott Fitgerald, Kakfa, Hemingway, Camus and all the other great writers who taught me how to be a human being.

Charles Dickens offered his publisher money to stop illustrating his work and illustrations can make something appear less serious. Not everything needs illustration. But I would say that everything can be illustrated.

Getting back to children, I think that there are a couple of areas where the illustration of fiction for older children can be actually be helpful. One is historical, the other fantasy. Historical because it can help the reader picture an alien historical period that they may have little prior knowledge of (Charles Keeping was a master of this, and so is Victor Ambrus). Fantasy for similar reasons - illustrations can help the reader to make an imaginary world more concrete. Good writing can do all this unaided of course. But good writing is not harmed by good illustration. The success of Chris Riddell and Paul Stewart's books show that there is a real appetite for copiously illustrated fantasy fiction whatever the age of the reader.

Another area that benefits from illustration is horror. David Roberts work for Uncle Montague's tales of Terror is a good example as are the illustrations by Francis Mosley for M R James' ghost stories for the Folio Society (incidentally Charles Keeping also illustrated those stories). The right illustrations work a little like music in a scary movie. They get the reader in the mood. And like all illustrations - they make the book a more desirable object. They make it special.

I need a sillier name

I am still getting over the shock news that my blog is not among the 50 most influential listed by the Observer magazine today. I have figured out that I need to make a few changes. I need to move to New York (or at least to a loft), I need to be more politically controversial, have more celebrity gossip and give the blog a sillier name. I shall give it some thought.

We went to another free concert at the Fitzwilliam Museum today. Brahms (Sonata #2 in F) and Beethoven (Sonata #2) this time. Michael Wigram on the cello. Lynn Carter on the piano. It was great actually. Lovely music, beautifully played. We got there early this time and sat closer. We sat in the front row actually. So close the cellist was practically elbowing us in the face. We could hear him take great gasping breaths as he played. This is a bit of a dull sketch of it. Apologies to Lynn Carter, whose contribution to the concert is not really mirrored in my drawing.

The storyteller

I was at Heffers Bookshop in the Grafton Centre in Cambridge today, invited there by the ever-enthusiastic and helpful Kate Johnson. Heffers are so fantastically supportive of children's authors and illustrators - and not simply of those who can guarantee a queue out of the door (and therefore require no support). Both branches of Heffers in Cambridge have been very good to me, and Suzanne Jones who has organised most of the events is a star.

I have to admit, though - I was a little concerned that we might not get an audience. But I needn't have. There was a nice little group of very friendly children with their equally friendly parents. It was great actually and everything you want from a children's department in a bookshop.

I made the decision that Uncle Montague's Tales of Terror were perhaps a little too terror-filled for the age of children, most of whom were under ten, so I read a bit from Billy Wizard and asked the children what their favourite books or types of books were. I put in a bid for The Cat in the Hat as one of mine. I may bang on about Dr Seuss and his genius at a later date.

I'd brought an edition of Saki short stories with me and read The Storyteller, which went down well. I need to devote a post to Saki at some point I think. He is brilliant. I sold a few Uncle Montagues and talked about Tales of Terror from the Black Ship - and a little about how I work and what I'm writing now.

When everyone had gone I signed a pile of books for the children at St John's College School who had missed out because we ran out of books on the day. Actually the warehouse ran out of books. Bloomsbury are reprinting a couple of thousand, which is great news. And I even got a box of chocolate biscuits from Kate for coming along.

Scary pictures

One of the questions I am often asked about Uncle Montague's Tales of Terror is 'Why didn't you illustrate them yourself?'

When I first wrote the book, I did give some thought to how I would illustrate it myself. I was not entirely happy with what I came up with though. I felt quite strongly that I would have to change the way I normally work for this book and I did not want to get bogged down in the visual side of things. I wanted to ensure the writing was as good as I could get it and I wanted to make sure it was published. Everything else was secondary.

All the time I was writing the Uncle Montague/Edgar sections, I had Edward Gorey at the back of my mind. I love Gorey. I love that dark humour that you get with him and Charles Addams. Gorey was very much the tone I wanted, in both the writing of the storytelling sections and in the look of the book.

Then my wife happened to buy a copy of Ten Sorry Tales by Mick Jackson. It was very nicely illustrated by someone who obviously knew and liked Gorey as much as I did, but who had still got his own distinctive style. That illustrator was David Roberts.

Then, when I first went to see Sarah Odedina at Bloomsbury one very hot day in the summer of 2006, she handed me a copy of Ten Sorry Tales and told me that David was the illustrator she had in mind. Sarah seemed to have really understood what I was trying to do and it seemed stupid not to relax and go with the flow. It did seem like the perfect match.

And it turned out to be a very good decision. It left me free to concentrate on the stories and David did a brilliant job. He has been so enthusiastic and it shows in the work. He seems to have really enjoyed himself. Nice man too.

I had a quick email conversation with David today. He told me a very funny story about going to a school. As I mentioned in the last post - you can never tell how things are going to go. David thought the children were going to be 13 and 14 year-olds, but they were instead 6 and 7. In a scene straight out of Gorey, he said there were some frightened faces when they youngsters were presented with drawings like this one. . .