Lyra and the Adventure of the Flying Fish - a book review

Lyra and W Rabbit have just joined my list of favourite characters of all time. They are up there with Just William and the Moomins, as far as I'm concerned, and I can't say more than that.

This book is utterly delightful. It was inspired, we are told, by a premature baby girl called Lyra whose companion from birth is a cuddly white rabbit called, appropriately enough, W Rabbit. Disaster strikes when W Rabbit is carried off by a schol of flying fish. But with the help of various aquatic companions, including an aristocratic turtle called Timothy, Lyra manages to track him down. W Rabbit is top of the class at the flying school, but he happily gives up his career to rejoin his beloved Lyra.

At the end, we see the real Lyra, now big enough no longer to need the special breathing apparatus that looked like a snorkel and inspired the story.

The language is delightful; the illustrations are out of this world. Together they make magical music.

Young, old or somewhere in-between, you'll love this book.

Book details:

Lyra and the Adventure of the Flying Fish

Author: Peter Emina
Illustrator: Alice Ridley
Published by Phoenix Yard Books, London
Age: 7-9
RRP: £11.99
ISBN: 978-1-907912-01-6
Publication Date: 28-03-2011

See on the publishers' website at:
http://www.phoenixyardbooks.com/view_book.php?id=13

Buy on Amazon at:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/1907912010/ref=cm_cr_mts_prod_img

Seriously weird - I have a twitter ghost

OK, so Coping with Chloe is about a girl whose identity is being threatened by her (dead) twin sister.

Would you believe that my Twitter identity is now being threatened by a ghostly Tweeter who has copied some of my tweets, stolen my profile and is thus claiming to have written 'Chloe'?

No, I wouldn't have believed it either. Truth is stranger than fiction and all that.

It's worrying, as well as funny and apt. If she starts sending out her own tweets in my name, things could get serious. I've already tweeted to her several times, asking her politely to remove my profile from her name. It could be a simple mistake after all, on her part or Twitter's. I've also reported it to twitter.com.

I'm told I should feel flattered! It would be nice to think she has singled me out as a celebrity author (ha!), but I doubt it somehow. She probably chose my profile at random or it was done by one of her friends as a silly joke. Or perhaps Twitter has messed up...

Anyway - since there are now two of me I have just eaten enough Mother's Day chocolates for both of us, at least :)

Flabbersmacked and gobbergasted...

... and really, really chuffed!

Some lovely reviews of Coping with Chloe so far, plus interviews:

Kay Green, Circaidy Gregory Review

hackwriters.com

the bookbag

tall tales and short stories (scroll down)

Lou Treleaven, Writer

Louise Wise: Wise Words (scroll down)

Scottish Book Trust

Joanne Fox: A zigzag road

So pleased that people seem to be liking my book. Thanks to everyone who has read, commented and reviewed. Hoping for some reactions from younger readers, very soon!

How many books do you read or write at once?

As an academic I got used to dipping and delving into books. Even those I read from cover to cover, I would rarely read "in series" - I nearly always had 5 or 6 on the go at the same time. The same is true of fiction - I'm often reading a YA novel, something vaguely literary, something unashamedly popular and something else (often a 'William' or a 'Moomin' book that I first read 40 years ago but it never fails to delight me, however many times I return).

This seems to work quite well. Clearly my brain knows how to divide itself up into handling lots of different books at the same time (I wish it would apply the same techniques and learn to multi-task. I still haven't learned to converse with any degree of coherence while eating a meal, and I certainly can't walk and talk at the same time - never could, never will...)

And now it seems I'm writing lots of books at the same time, too. A couple of years ago I had 3 or 4 on the go - all at different stages. Now, if I stop to count, it's more like 6 or 7. I find this slightly worrying: (a) because it suggests I'm starting a lot more than I finish and (b) because, well, I hate to admit it but I occasionally get confused. And I object to stopping in the middle of a sentence to go and check something, so I often find I'm suffering from character creep - where Mr A from Book 1 suddenly turns up and starts engaging in dialogues (or perhaps more raunchy activities) with Mrs B from Book 2.

You get the idea. It's a bit like those big parties where suddenly the friends from one bit of your life meet up with the friends (or relations) from another bit and you think - help! They all know different versions of me. What if they stop to compare and discover discrepancies? (Not that they ever seem to. I assume it's because they find more interesting things to talk about than me - let's hope so, anyway.)

So I'm interested to know whether other readers and writers find themselves tangled up in lots of different books, or whether you are sufficiently restrained and organised to manage to stick to one (or perhaps no more than three) at a time? If so, please tell me how you do it.

I can never remember the plots of books once I've finished reading them, either - probably because my poor overloaded brain is so relieved when it can knock one finished novel out of its working memory that it hurriedly destroys all records, without trace. All I remember is that I liked the book or I didn't - and they rarely fall between.

All geared up for publication day - or not?

Tomorrow is publication day for Coping with Chloe and I'm excited - sort of. Except I'm not, because this is my third publication day (the first two were for my novels for adults) and I've learnt from bitter experience...

You wake up thinking it's going to be every childhood Christmas and birthday rolled into one, plus the day of your first Brownie pack holiday, plus the day you left home for university...

Actually, my publication days so far have been a bit like those latter two things - dire disappointments! No one's fault - certainly not my lovely publishers or my loyal fans (hey there, both of you :) ) or my beloved family and friends... just me for getting over-excited about something that turns out to be a bit of a non-event.

Not sure what I expected, exactly. Being woken by a call to be interviewed by James Naughtie on Radio 4's Today? Reporters hammering at the door, cameras in tow? Heat magazine offering me large sums of the money for the lowdown on my steamy love life? (hey, turn off the bathroom tap someone, please...)

None of those things happened the last two times and I'm pretty sure they won't this time, either. If I'm lucky, the 'Pre-order' icon on the Amazon page will change to 'Add to shopping basket'. Perhaps, if I stay awake till midnight, I will even see it change! (No, that's ridiculously sad.) With luck, some reviews will appear...

But Monday 21st March will be an ordinary day, and for that, I know, I should be grateful. There are terrible things going on in the world that put book publication well and truly in its place, and I should be thankful for a safe, warm, well-fed, unthreatened life for myself and my loved ones (touch wood, as my grandma used to say).

And believe me, I am thankful. I've got plans to meet up with a friend tomorrow, someone I've not seen for 5 or more years. That will be wonderful. And I shall be getting down to a few household tasks and to my daily writing stint, and tuning into The Archers at 7pm. Life is rich and exciting and I'm very lucky to have been published at all.

But hey... if anyone out there is listening... if Stephen Fry needs someone new for QI, I'm here with my hand up! Stephen, James, Mariella Frostrup - coooeeee!!!!

The future of eBooks - writing as well as reading them

There's a big debate going on about eBooks and whether they will ever replace the paper kind. Personally, I hope not. I believe both have their place, but for me, nothing can ever match the feel, smell and taste (yes, I chew their corners sometimes...) of a new book.

But that's not my subject for today. I'm a writer as well as a reader, and the writer in me leaps with excitement at the opportunities that eBooks afford. For example - there's no reason I can't write a book that works a bit like one of those computer games where the player decides which path to go down next. The book could change depending on what choices the reader makes. Or not... it could stay exactly the same, but be designed so that the reader will have a different experience depending on which route she takes through it. Now this doesn't have to be restricted to children's books or even 'fun' books for adults - it could apply to serious works of literature and even - let me just pause to bate my breath - to literary fiction.

There's a precedent for this. Back in the 1960s, a British author called B. S. Johnson - a respected writer of his day - experimented with a novel, The Unfortunates, that was published as a bundle of chapters in a box. Chapter 1 was to be read first, but after that it was entirely up to the reader which order to take. In at least one of Johnson's other novels, holes were placed in the pages to allow later bits of text to show through. At the time, he was regarded as somewhat eccentric and his ideas didn't really take off. He was in some ways, I suppose, ahead of his time. It's a pity, because his writing is exceptionally good and he deserves to be better known today.

But perhaps his day has come. If Bryan Johnson were writing now, I'd like to think he'd be excited by this new technology that would allow him to experiment with literary form (though perhaps he'd be way ahead of us again, despising anything that others are already doing?)

I'm not trying to compare myself to B. S. Johnson (I wish!), but I'm currently working on my first science fiction novel for adults. Without talking away the story, I'll just say that it has two strands, one in 2031 and one in 2222, and my aim is for the two strands to intertwine in any way the reader wishes. To some extent this captures the themes of the book, which touches on the nature of time, consciousness and the nature of reality (I know, a bit ambitious, but these are pet obsessions of mine...). The challenge now is to write it so that it makes sense whatever way the strands are interwined - a different sense in each case.

Will I succeed? Who knows, but it's exciting to try, and what joy to live in an age where eReaders make such things possible. New technology is opening up possibilities for authors that were undreamed of 40 years ago. And if a conventional publisher isn't interested, I can always go ahead and produce my own eBooks.

I haven't touched on all the other opportunities, such as apps, web-based enhancements in various media such as music, video and pictures, and interaction with the reader. The obvious application is for kids, but one day perhaps the Martin Amises of this world (or their descendants) will be working this way, too. After all, Martin Amis wrote a book, Time's Arrow, that happened backwards, and so he in his way is another pioneer of the kind of thing I'm suggesting.

No one has to do things this way, of course. There will always be a place, I believe, for the conventional novel - traditional in both content and form. And perhaps we will try the new stuff, reject it and return to the way of telling stories that has been ours for millennia. Who knows?

Writers and readers - what do you think?

(For more information and a fascinating biography of B. S. Johnson, see Jonathan Coe's Like a Fiery Elephant, 2004, Picador.)

The smell of new books

There's nothing like that wonderful smell of fresh new paper. That sense of being the first reader ever to open this particular new book. The way the spine gives, just a little, however carefully you handle it. The smoothness of the cover under your fingers. And, I've discovered - it's even better when the book is one you wrote yourself.

The postman woke me at 7:30 this morning with a parcel - and yes! it contained twelve paperback copies of 'Coping with Chloe', beautifully produced, no typos that I can see, an enticing blurb, and all in the most gorgeous blue, white and and gold covers.

Yes, I know, I'm biased. But I really do think that my publishers, Phoenix Yard Books, have done an excellent job, as have the copy-editor, the printers, the cover designer and everyone else involved. It's been a pleasure to work with Emma Langley and her team at the Yard, and I can't wait to meet more of them at the launch party in April.

Thanks too to all my writing friends, including the Earlyworks and Writers Talkback people, who have kept me afloat through the various disappointments and disasters in my writing life so far.

It's tempting to take the day off and spend it fondling and sniffing my new books, but no. Time to press on with the latest, which is looking as though it may have to be an e-book, for various reasons I will explain next time...