Guest Post - Damian Dibben - The History Keepers

Hi everyone,

Today I have the immense pleasure to invite Damian Dibben, author of The History Keepers series to talk about his passion for film and how, from a screenplay writing career, he came to write a novel.

The first book in the series, The Storm Begins is now out in paperback and the second book Circus Maximus is out this month. Without further ado, I'll hand over  to Damian!

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I always loved films as much as books - good stories, in whatever form, have always excited me. I was not good at English at school, so I never imagined I would write a novel - but I thought I could write a screenplay, as it is really nothing more than a set of elaborate instructions. After spells first as a set builder and then as an actor, I took to screenwriting. To my amazement my first script, Seventh Heaven, an uproarious love story set against a fictional apocalypse in 1820, was bought by Miramax and John Madden, the director of Shakespeare In Love was attached. This led to a number of high profile commissions here and in Hollywood, working with directors as diverse and fantastic as Danny Boyle, Mike Radford and Gillian Armstrong. 

It was when I was working with the producers of Shrek on an animated film about Santa Claus, that I started to feel I could write my own children's story. Something epic, full of adventure, danger, romance and humour. I came up with The History Keepers, about a boy who discovers his parents are lost in history and the secret service he has to join to track them down. 

Before the book had even been finished, the film rights were optioned by Working Title, the producers of Notting Hill, Bridget Jones and Billy Elliot and they plan to build a franchise that they can sell around the world. I am working on the screenplay at the moment, having just completed the second book in the series. The script is a different animal to the novel - for a start four hundred pages has to be quartered - the story needs to be recast and shaped to work effectively on film. Some tough decisions had to be taken to keep the story supremely focused and visual. Writing a novel is a longer and often harder journey than writing a screenplay, but when it is finished, it can stand up by itself as a finished piece of work. There is no greater feeling.

 http://www.thehistorykeepers.com/ 

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Many thanks Damian for talking to us about your journey to publication!

If you want to read an extract of the book, 
head over to the widget of CIRCUS MAXIMUS below:

Giveaway!! [UK and Ireland only]

Hi guys,

As you may have seen from my twitter feed if you follow me, I am moving to Edinburgh to live with my better half and start a new job at the end of this week.

I am extremely excited and I really can't wait to move, even though I'll miss everyone in London!

I am halfway through packing and realized I have some books that I have in duplicate or some book proofs for which I have a finished copy of, so I will be giving away some of my fave books here (new copies) and giving the rest to charity!

I have 3 book proofs which will only be given away to a blogger and some finished copies which will be given away to bloggers and readers alike. I will only send to UK and Ireland only (sorry!). 

Please send me an email here with "GIVEAWAY" in the subject line. Send me your name and which book you would like. Please add your address as well so that I can send them asap (I won't use that information and emails will be deleted after the giveaway). 

The books will be attributed on a first come first served basis. I would rather give each book to a different person but if there is another book you are dying to read and no one else has claimed it, I'll send it as well.

I hope this is all clear and some of you will be thrilled to receive the following books!

Cheers, 

Caroline x

Update: Books which are already claimed are barred. 

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BOOK PROOFS:

This is for bloggers only so send me your blog URL with your email!

Dead Rules, by R. S. Russell

Poison Heart, by S. B. Hayes

The Prince of Mist, Carlos Ruiz Zafon

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BOOKS:

For everyone in UK and Ireland

Wintergirls, by Laurie Halse Anderson

Ash, by Malinda Lo

Jessie [Hearts] NYC, by Keris Stainton

Annie On My Mind, by Nancy Garden

Shine, Lauren Myracle (US HB)

Guest post: Zoe Marriott on her passion for Japanese culture

This post is part of the Japanese Fiction Week, hosted here.

For more information about the week, head over here.

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Today I am thrilled to welcome Zoe Marriott, author of the fantastic Shadows On the Moon, to Portrait of a Woman. She will be talking to us about her passion for Japanese culture and her favourite books.

I'm really not an expert on Japan. People think that I am because I wrote Shadows on the Moon, which is set in a faerytale version of Feudal Japan. I've been praised for the amount of historical detail included, and sometimes people assume I must have visited Japan many times. But the fact is that I've never been there even once, although it's my life's ambition to, one day. And I've barely scratched the surface of this fascinating culture. 

I actually kind of like it that way. It means I've got so much more to learn, and that's the best way to feel about anything you love the way I love Japan. Because I really do. If Japan were a person and not a country, I would totally be it's stalker (also, wouldn't he or she be *gorgeous*?). Japan's many years of conscious and careful isolation up to the nineteenth century have resulted in a wealth of music, art, folklore, shared images and dreams and history which literally have no counterpart in any other country. In Europe and the Americas, in Russia, even in the middle east, it's possible to trace a mythological figure from nation to nation, transforming as he goes, or find a hundred different versions of the same story. Even China shares some of this. All that stops when you hit Japan. The fairytales and under-the-bed monsters, the turns of phrase that the Japanese people take for granted are utterly new and alien and all the more breathtakingly lovely and terrifying for that! 

The only other country I can think of with this kind of unexplored culture is Australia. But the aboriginal peoples of Australia were slaughtered and oppressed by white settlers who tried their best to stamp out the history of the land they had taken by force. The surviving indigenous people resent appropriation fiercely (for good reason, since they are trying so hard to recover and conserve that culture themselves!). The Japanese, on the other hand, still have a dominant and evolving cultural identity within their own nation. This allows them to appropriate freely from the rest of the world in their own media, and so it seems fair to borrow a little of their culture in return, even as an outsider. 

The obsession started young for me. Really young. So young that I can't tell you how old I was, only that I was small enough to sit cross legged in front of the television set and not get yelled at because my head was in the way. It was a Sunday afternoon and I'm pretty sure it was raining, but that's pretty much the only stuff I can remember about that day because every other braincell I have is taken up with the glorious, amazing, life-changing thing I saw. Hayao Miyazaki's animated film Laputa - now known as Castle in the Sky.

It's the story of a little orphan girl who is abducted by ruthless and ambitious men who intend to force her to reveal the secrets of her ancestor's power - the power to command a mythical floating city filled with unimaginable treasures and weapons of unbelievable power. There's a sweet, innocent love story, and sky pirates, and a moment when this tiny, round faced child stands resolute before a man who shoots off both her braids because she refuses to give up her secret to someone who will abuse it.

I'm pretty sure I never recovered. I mean, Disney was all very well (and you'll have to pry my copies of Beauty and the Beast and Tangled out of my cold dead hands) but COME ON. I'd never seen anything like Laputa in my life before. Beautiful, funny, disturbing, tragic, terrifying, unique and bittersweet, it exposed me to emotions and images that stayed with me for life. The girl flinging herself from the plane in desperation. The pendant glowing with a beautiful and sinister glow and her featherlike floating process through the sky, peaceful and serene. The glowing crystals in the underground caverns. The strangely lovely and mournful robots and their bird-like mechanical voices. The great city fallen to ruins, all covered in giant trees the size of skyscrapers and thick, jewel-like moss. When my brother tracked down a copy of this on DVD for me for Christmas one year (back before it was widely released in the English speaking world) I cried all over him. Not the reception he was probably going for. But it meant that much to me.

I think I've spent the last twenty-odd years of my life searching to recapture that feeling - the feeling of diving headfirst into a magical and unexplored country - again. Once I figured out who'd made Laputa I tracked down every other film he'd ever made and devoured them. Princess Mononoke, Spirited Away, Nausicaa, My Neighbour Totoro, The Cat Returns. And when I ran out of Hayao Miyazaki I moved onto Paprika and Millenium Actress by Satoshi Kon. All these are a great place to start exploring this powerful artform and beginning to gain an inkling of how fascinating Japanese culture is.

But all these are, to a greater or lesser extent, fantasy. You can pick up a lot from fantasy, but let's say you'd like to start with something a little down to earth. How about trying one of of my ultimate all-time favourite mangas? The Flower of Life by Fumi Yoshinaga. Readily available in English, it's a four volume 'slice of life' series about a diverse group of friends and acquaintances (and their teachers) in the first years at Japanese high school. It's a poignant, touching, hilarious and wonderful portrait of how it feels to be young, with the constant rush to grow up doing battle with a nostalgia for fragile innocence which is inevitably slipping away. It's also beautifully drawn, and a great introduction to manga conventions, like reading from right to left.

Or perhaps you're in the mood for a romance - with a paranormal twist? How about Fruits Basket? It's a long running (now complete) series about a family who bear an ancient curse: they turn into animals from the Chinese zodiac when someone of the opposite sex hugs them. The story follows the misadventures of a young girl who gets mixed up with them by chance, grows to love several of them in different ways, and tries to help them overcome the curse. It starts out cute and fluffy and gets gradually darker, and is like a masterclass in subtle characterisation, presenting easy stereotypes to the reader and slowly peeling back the layers to reveal the contradictory, complex, real person beneath. Don't watch the anime though; it cuts off with a nonsensical ending nothing like the manga and left me very frustrated. 

Not keen on paranormal? Then how about just plain old hilarious? Ouran High School Host Club (again, a long running series that is now complete) is probably one of the the best mangas I've ever read. It freely mocks and subverts normal shojo (that's girl's manga) tropes while at the same time squeezing laughs out of them. Haruhi - a poor, out of place, genius scholarship student at a prestigious school full of the superrich - stumbles into the middle of a group of bored, privileged kids who run a 'host' club to amuse themselves. The tables turn constantly. One minute Haruhi is beliguered and bullied by the rich kids, the next they're scrambling to impress Haruhi. The anime for this is also superb, though it cuts off waaaay before the manga finished, so be prepared.

For shounen - that's 'boy's manga' - my recommendation is Bleach (which is also a very decent anime, if you skip the filler arcs where they were waiting for the manga to catch up and just shoved any old nonsense in there). It's a great, action-packed manga about Shinigami, Japanese soul reapers, and a young human boy who ends up accidentally taking on some of their powers and - well - kicking monster ass with a huge-ass sword. Can you ask for more? Neither the manga or the anime are complete though. I'm personally freaking the heck out over current developments, so be warned.

Now for a few recommendations in one of my favourite manga and anime categories. Yaoi. That's gay romance featuring blokes. Hyouta Fujiyama is a brilliant mangaka in this field - her books are sweet, funny and feature some of my favourite art. Spell, Lover's Flat, Freefall Romance and Ordinary Crushvols. 1 and 2 are a good place to start, if you can get them. Fumi Yoshinaga, the author of The Flower of Life, that I mentioned above, also dabbles in this field. She wrote Moon and Sandals vols. 1 and 2 and The First Class is Civil Law vols. 1 and 2, brilliant works about learning to accept other people for what they are, if you wish to be loved the same way in return. Lily Hoshino is another mangaka whose art is breathtaking. I love My Flower Bride, My Flower Groom and Love Quest. Another favourite is Little Butterfly, by Hinako Takanaga, which is three volumes, but available in an omnibus edition - a truly epic, and yet completely down to earth story of the transformations caused by true love. For anime in this field? If you can find a copy of Winter Cicada - the story of two young Samurai on opposite sides in the Japanese civil war, who fall in love - you're in for a treat, although you should have tissues handy. LOTS of tissues.

Some of these are available on Amazon or even in your local bookshop. For others you might need to go to specialist manga and anime sellers, or buy secondhand. But I promise that you will be well rewarded! Exploring Japanese culture is a journey which I don't think I'll ever come to the end of, and the more people who are travelling with me, the more fun it will be.

Zxx

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Thanks Zoe for this post! I now have quite a few books (and anime) to track down on Amazon!

You can stalk Zoe:

www.zoemarriott.com
The Zoe-Trope Blog
YouTube

Moribito: Guardian of the Spirit - Nahoko Uehashi | Japanese Fiction Week

This post is part of the Japanese Fiction Week, hosted here.

For more information about the week, head over here.

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Moribito is a best-selling fantasy series which has been adapted on screen, in manga form and on the radio. It is composed of twelve volumes but this review will only be about the first novel. The author, Nahoko Uehashi, is also teaching ethonology at a Japanese University.

Balsa is a spear woman and wandering warrior who tries to save people to atone for past mistakes. When she saves the life of Chagum, the Second Prince, she finds herself in the middle of old traditions and politics which will change her life. When it is suspected that the young prince's body is inhabited by a demon, the king sets to kill him. But Chagum's mother thwarts his plans by hiring Balsa to take Chagum far away from the palace and protect him. Because the knowledge has been lost in time, Chagum is falsely accused of having a demon in him. He was actually chosen to be the egg-bearer of a long forgotten god, in a journey which happens every hundred years. Chagum and Balsa have to face two deadly enemies: a mythical creature and the king's hunters.

Moribito is a lovely fantasy story which brings together fascinating characters and traditional myths. Balsa is a strong and impressive woman who was trained to be a warrior. She has an incomparable strength and set of skills which make her a deadly enemy. In a patriarchal society, she is different from most of the other women but she is highly respected. Torogai, an old woman who knows how to work magic, is also a strong female character and is stronger than several warriors. She also has a hilarious personality which helps diffuse the tension at times. Torogai's apprentice, Tanda (who is in love with Balsa), also helps protect Chagum. 

The world Nahoko Uehashi builds is filled with mystery as different people live on the same land and have different cultures and beliefs. The forgotten belief of the Moribito is part of the world where there is a parallel realm of spirits called Nayugu. Even though Chagum is set in the real world, he protects an egg in Nayugu until it hatches. The creatures of Nayugu are fascinating (especially, Rarunga, the nasty egg-eater) and inspired from Japanese culture.

The interesting part of Moribito is how much it could be compared to the real world. In this land which has seen a civilization overtake another, the cultural traditions of the previous people have been forgotten or hidden under the new civilization's. No one can remember what happened when other children have become egg-bearers and the old languages and traditions have all been forgotten. History isn't a factual and objective account of what happened, it's only what the victor wants history to remember. It's quite interesting to read those ideas in a book for young audiences, especially when the reader roots for Balsa and Torogai, who want all point of views and all cultures to be represented equally in the society.

Chagum doesn't choose to be the Moribito, the Guardian of the Spirit, and he goes through an angry phase where he keeps wondering "Why me?" and thinking how unfair life is. Through her similar experience, Balsa shares some words of wisdom to Chagum and changes his perspective on things. Life is often unfair and there isn't much one can do except accept his or her circumstance and get on with things. 

I have only read the first volume of this series and I am really looking forward reading the rest. It is a book which is not only an entertaining read for all ages, but also a book which illustrates brilliantly some ideas about tradition and how civilizations are created. 

Guest review: Out by Natsuo Kirino | Japanese Fiction Week

This post is part of the Japanese Fiction Week, hosted here.

For more information about the week, head over here.

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Please welcome Nina from Death, Books and Tea for a review of Out by Natsuo Kirino.

Masako, Yoshie, Kuniko and Yayoi are four women working the night shift at a boxed lunch factory. Each have no prospects, and all want to escape. Yayoi is the one who cracks, killing her gambling husband. She turns to Masako, who gets Yoshie and Kuniko to help cut up the body. When the police come looking, all four have something to hide. But they've also got other enemies who want things-Satake, the night club owner with past convictions putting him at number one suspect, and Jumonji, the loan shark who knows what they did. With these people, the police, and the things they're being asked to do, the four women can't really think about getting out.

I am so glad that I decided to read this on holiday-hours of time to just sit and read and see this intricate story develop. I know I'm reviewing this for Japanese YA week, but this cannot be classed as YA. Sex, rape and murder feature heavily and the characters are at the youngest a twenty year old hostess. So now we've established this as being not for younger readers (something I found out a little late), on with the main review.

The only thing that I really disliked was the very final rape. Although it added a bit of continuity to the story, it was just a little too much. The other gore, rape and violence was used as plot development. But that was rape for the sake of rape. The start was a little slow. It just seemed to follow their normal lives, which I understand is useful, but it was a bit boring. Around the 50 page mark, the husband is murdered. And it goes quite fast from there.

All the main character's personal stories are fully developed both before and during the main action. It's difficult for me, as a teenager at school, to get into the minds of women and men in their thirties upwards. But it was really easy for me to understand their thinking.

The thing that got to me was how easily the women lied while being questioned by the police after the murder took place. For it to have been about a week since she killed a man, she lies, fakes tears, and gets on so easily that you wonder about the girl you were introduced to and how she was changed so much by desperation. Masako especially is a very intriguing character. I liked reading about her, seeing what she'd decide next, and so on. She was definitely changed by the murder.

The quick pace and the style of the translation kept me reading. It's also really unpredictable, with some things crossing your mind as you read. They're so mean to the characters that you wonder if they really will happen. Then you dismiss it. And then it happens.

Strength 5 tea (or 5/5) to a gritty look at the backside of Japan, the ordinary people living there, and the depths of the human psyche.

Thanks for hosting this awesome event!

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It sounds pretty awesome - I'm really looking forward reading it!