Nina Allan's Homepage

Month: July 2016

The Art of Space Travel

art of space travel yanMy new novelette, ‘The Art of Space Travel’, is now live at tor.com. It can also be purchased in Kindle format for just 79 p!

The story is narrated by Emily, head of housekeeping at the luxury airport hotel that is to play host to two astronauts on the eve of their one-way journey to the planet Mars. As if the media frenzy weren’t enough to cope with, Emily has a seriously ill mother to care for, and a past she doesn’t know about that is about to catch up with her.

My inspiration for this story was Heathrow airport itself. Standing in the car park of the Renaissance Hotel a couple of Eastercons ago watching aeroplanes take off and land, I knew I had to write a story about the place, the transitional nature of life as it is lived there, the curiously blurry spaces between the airport and the villages that ring the perimeter.

‘The Art of Space Travel’ was the result. The beautiful artwork is by Linda Yan.

#weird2016: The Witch

the witch filmWell, this was interesting. I’d been looking forward to The Witch ever since seeing the trailer around this time last year. I missed seeing it in the cinema but finally caught up with it on DVD, a perfectly acceptable substitute when the need arises, but the unnerving, subtle beauty of the cinematography did leave me wishing I’d been able to experience this movie on the big screen as the director intended.

Cast out from their fledgling Puritan community in the backwoods of seventeenth-century New England (the film opens with a theological disagreement between church elders) William (Ralph Ineson getting his best Nedd Stark on) and Katherine (the always excellent Kate Dickie) take their five children to live in a remote farmstead on the edge of the forest. When the youngest of the children vanishes without a trace, William is determined to blame the tragedy on blind chance – a wolf must have taken the boy. Twins Jonas and Mercy have other ideas, though – everyone knows the woods are home to witches. Their brother’s disappearance must surely be the work of the devil. But who is the devil working through, and who will be his next victim?

It would be impossible to watch the first half of this film without thinking of Nicholas Hytner’s The Crucible, with Ralph Ineson in the Daniel Day Lewis role, a man of faith who is nonetheless determined to uphold the laws of reason in the face of a religious extremism that threatens to overturn the community and civilisation they have spent so long in building. Naturally blame for the devilish goings on is laid at the door of Thomasin (Anya Taylor-Joy), William and Katherine’s adolescent daughter whose burgeoning sexuality has already begun to stir the senses of her younger brother Caleb (Harvey Scrimshaw). William won’t have it, though – Thomasin is ‘his girl’, intelligent, truthful and responsible. When she says the twins’ talk of her being a witch is nothing but a joke, he is prepared to believe her. But as tragedy after tragedy strikes the family, his faith in God and in his daughter is tested to the limit – and beyond.

As with The Crucible, it is emotional claustrophobia, the sense of creeping entrapment with no safe way out for anyone, that defines the action of this unusual and affecting film. The family, already under a severe strain from the harsh demands of their environment, seem besieged by misfortune, and the rising tide of horror seems all the more unbearable for taking place in such isolation, away from the sight and knowledge of anyone who might offer help. Of course it’s more or less impossible to know what life in a seventeenth-century New England village might ‘really’ have been like, but the period details here – the robust Puritan clothing, the mud, the candlelight, the sinister, encroaching forest and above all the sense of being acutely vulnerable in a vast and unknowable world, are rendered with a level of passionate commitment (I was reminded of Andrea Arnold’s Wuthering Heights) that makes them feel accurate and utterly convincing.

What surprised me most about The Witch was the ultimate direction it chose to take. I don’t want to spoil the film for anyone by revealing too much about that, and even hours after seeing it I still can’t decide whether it was madness to go that way, or genius. What I do know is that The Witch is a beautifully crafted, richly imagined and intellectually worthwhile addition to your watch lists, and I would advise any fan of horror cinema – especially quiet horror cinema – to see this as soon as you can, if you haven’t already.

There’s a fascinating and informative interview with the film’s director, Robert Eggers, here. Suffice it to say this guy has definitely earned his horror credentials!

The Race goes live!

The brand new Titan edition of The Race is published today!the race cover (2)

And just in case you didn’t know, this definitive edition of The Race contains an 18,000-word appendix that was written specially for the reissue and that did not appear in the original 2014 release by NewCon. This appendix, entitled ‘Brock Island’, will hopefully bring pleasure (and a measure of closure) to anyone who might have been wondering what happened to Maree after she stepped ashore in Thalia.

I am utterly delighted by the finished book, and I want to extend enormous thanks to the brilliant team at Titan, and in particular my editor Cath Trechman, for making it happen.

There will be a number of interviews and reviews appearing online to mark the launch over the next week or so, so keep a lookout for those. To start us off, here’s an interview I did for The Qwillery, a pleasing review from Gary K. Wolfe in the Chicago Tribune, and here’s The Race appearing as part of Brooklyn magazine’s list of 100 Books to Read for the Rest of 2016. This genuinely eclectic and noteworthy list is well worth checking out, and with writers such as Indra Das, Teju Cole, Nell Zink and Claire Louise Bennett to keep me company I’m honoured, not to say daunted, to be included.

Edge-Lit 5

I’m a guest at Edge-Lit 5 in Derby this coming weekend. I’m delighted to be attending this mini-convention, and with guests like Alastair Reynolds and M. John Harrison in the line-up, it promises to be a great day all round.

I’ll be taking part in three panels, discussing subjects as diverse as the indie press revolution, the future of science fiction and the writing life. I’ll also be chairing a workshop in which I’m looking forward to having some good conversations about how we write – military campaign or abject chaos. You tell me!

Edge-Lit 5 will be taking place on Saturday from 10 am at Derby Quad. You will find the full line-up of amazing guests and programme items here. Please do come along if you can.

51pauAPtSYL._SX322_BO1,204,203,200_In another piece of good news, I was thrilled to see Aickman’s Heirs taking the Shirley Jackson Award for Best Anthology over the weekend. It really is a special book, highlighting the continuing influence and importance of Robert Aickman as a writer, whilst simultaneously showcasing new and emerging trends in horror and weird fiction on both sides of the Atlantic. Full kudos to editor Simon Strantzas for dreaming up this project and bringing it to life, and particular congratulations to Lynda Rucker, whose story ‘The Dying Season’ deservedly carried home the individual award for Best Short Story.

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