'Saint Darwin's Spiritual' was excellent. Atmospheric, dramatic, with well-drawn characters. The only criticism is that there was too much going on for a short story; it felt a bit crammed. I really felt like this was a novel or novella shoe-horned into a shorter format. The world D.K. Thompson has created, is rich, imaginative and filled with potential. As a writer, it is definitely a world I'd like to play in, which I imagine is the ultimate accolade. As an exercise in highlighting the overlap of genres, and how very little actually separates fantasy, horror and science fiction, this story is quite enlightening. Imagine this piece without the Darwin references and it is strictly fantasy, and dark fantasy at that. Insert Darwin and we have an alternative history element: voila, science fiction! Despite the very minor criticism, I really enjoyed this story, my imagination augmented by Vincent Chong's striking cover image. When can we see the novel, Mr Thompson (and the Caro and Jeunet film adaptation)?

Johnson and Giron's 'Warped' was also enjoyable in a Future Shocks/Twisted Tales sort of way: graphic flash fiction with a twist. Leonardo Giron's images are extremely kinetic, reminiscent of cinematic storyboards.

Denis Pacher and R.D. Hall's 'The Visitor' was a similar exercise in graphic flash fiction with a twist but darker and more atmospheric, particularly effective given that nothing actually happens until the last three panels. Everything that goes before serves to 'ramp up' the effect of that final sequence. Excellent stuff.

And that's as far as I've got. Give me a couple of days to devour the rest, but so far issue four is the Murkiest to date.

Thanks for the comments, MJ. Still putting the finishing touches to The Lack?  

--Last edited by lucifal on 2008-05-11 21:54:56 --

After having picked up issue 4 at Bristol - nice to meet you again Terry - I have just today gotten round to reading any of it.

I agree with m.j.sellars on 'Saint Dawins Spiritual', it was gripping and a great read but it did seem like it wanted to be longer.

Also the warped story definately worked well, the art married up nicely to the excellent writing.

I shall hopefully find some time to finish reading the rest tomorrow, for now I was wanted to stop by say how much I'm enjoying it. Roll on pay day so I can get a subscrïption.

Chris Barker

Quote :

lucifal wrote : Thanks for the comments, MJ. Still putting the finishing touches to The Lack?

Thanks for asking. The Lack is finished and currently doing the submission/rejection thing with literary agencies nationwide. There was an initial spark of interest from Roc: I sent them a partial and within a couple of weeks they’d asked to see another 40 pages and a chapter-by-chapter synopsis. Alas, it came to nothing. I suspect the first couple of chapters gave them the impression the book might be more of ghost story and in keeping with their current (quite ‘gothy’) catalogue. Still, what doesn’t kill you and all that.

I’m about a third of the way into the first draft of my next novel: ‘Prey, Passage and Paradise’. I’m having a ball with it.

Just finished reading Trent Jamieson’s 'Day Boy'. Superb. The quality of the writing is excellent: fractured and immediate but rhythmic and mesmerising. There’s an awful lot of emotion for such a short story and a real weight of history to the thing. And I don’t even like vampire stories.

Heh.  I did have a 5,000 word limit  

Seriously, though, thanks to both of you.  I'm glad you liked Saint Darwin's Spirituals.  Hopefully I'll get back to Saint Darwin's world soon.  There's still a ton of room to play with around there.

If you ever fancy opening Saint Darwin's world up as a shared universe, you can count me in.

And those word count limits, they can be a real pain. Quite a few times I've felt a short story really start to open up. You just have to nail its foot to the hillside and hope it doesn't end up too hobbled and disfigured.

That's probably the ugliest sentence I've ever posted. Apologies.

I'm not even going to say what my top 3 favorites were...because I can't. There wasn't one piece in here that wasn't a pleasant surprise, not to mention snagging the _other_ psychonaut named Chong for the wonderful cover.  (Imagining a Cheech Marin and Vincent Chong collaboration... my tiny hed hurtz...)

Also, not that this has anything to do with the preceding paragraph, but the Paypal payment for "First Aid" just came in, and will be sacrificed to both Chongs and all Cheeches in very short order during yet another marathon session at the typer for my next MD sub, "Day of the Lords".

DotL is a Cory Doctorow homage (second this season) and also my very first zombie story. Wish me luck... ---ed.  

Good luck, Ed!  My issue came in a couple days ago and I'm burning through it.  Great stuff thus far.  I'd say it's the best MD issue yet, but I'm a little biased.

MJ, I'm not really experienced (or very well versed) in the who shared universes thing, aside from knowing what they are, but your offer really tickles me.  Thanks.  I'll keep it in mind!  

--Last edited by D.K. Thompson on 2008-05-20 18:19:00 --

A shared universe happens when one makes a concordance of a specific world in time/space and all the key points of that world that make it unique. Using that basic template, all authors involved are free to go any direction they choose. Classic examples: Everyone over at Baen's who ever wrote about Larry Niven's K'zin; The Lovecraft Circle; William Hope Hodgson's stuff; and of course no shared universe definition could not have at least one mention of Middle-Earth.

So you've got this universe here. It'd be kicks, on your own time, to make a template of it: The initial POD with Darwin's second Origin, all the tech that resulted, all the political and philosophical schisms... There would be a lot of brutality and bloodshed along the way, I think, both physical and emotional. It would be good to show each such event to yourself, if only on a timeline in pencil that can be corrected.

These are all just things I do myself, grain of salt attached.  

Amendment to an earlier bad joke: I think the true best-of-all-possible-worlds Cheech and Chong that I would pay money to see, as mentioned earlier, would be Vincent Chong and Von "Cheech Wizard" Bodie. Doing a full length feature film. Yet another application for alternate history...

My name is Glenn James, and I haven't been on the Forum before, but i just wanted to say Hi to D K Thompson, and anyone else who was discussing the excellent "Saint Darwin's Spirituals". I was lucky enough to be asked by Terry to provide the illustration inside the magazine for the story, and I hope it was appropriate!
It was one of the most challenging pieces I've had to draw so far, and I really enjoyed it.  (Hope you liked the Old Bill look for the Gollums, I actually modeled them in my daughter's Playdough as a reference!)

Really trippy work, Glenn! What media/methods did you use?

Glenn, thanks so much for the kind words and  the killer illustration.  I absolutely LOVED the way you did the golem (playdough, huh?), especially in contrast to Vincent Chong's imagining.  It blew me away and I could tell you really put a lot into it.

I'm really glad you posted, because I'd been trying to find a website with more of your stuff.  So cool!

Edward, thanks for the information on shared universes.  There are definitely a couple more stories I want to tell in this universe, but I will keep the idea in mind!  

--Last edited by D.K. Thompson on 2008-05-23 06:37:14 --

Hey Guys! Thank you both for getting back to me,and I'm really chuffed that you liked the work, BOY am I ever! It's one of the most imaginative challenges I've had as an illustrator and I did put a lot of work into it.  I said to Terry that I would like to do something which would really stretch me, and boy did he deliver with that commission!

The Medium I used Edward was black ink and a brush, chinagraph pencil, but mainly a Bic Biro, (which has become something of a signature tool for me.)You can get a lovely feathered line with a Biro, and I think it's a very under-rated drawing tool.

I really was pleased to hear that you liked it D K (can I ask your first name by the way!) because I was really taken with your story.  It's one of the most imaginative peices I have read in years, and I was chuffed to bits to be asked to ilustrate the work.  I really loved the idea of the ghosts moving through the Whitchapel fogs, accompanied by Gollum Police Officers, to try and catch that thing, fantastic!  

Kind of you to look for our website, too, thanks a lot. At the time of writing, (almost literally!) my wife and I are putting the finishing touched to a new website, which we hope to be launching next week.  The old one is still up and running, and it's primarily devoted to my work on my novel "Skaler," about a young vampire, (the address is www.skaler.co.uk), but the new one will give a much broader overview of my work, including in particlular my work so far for "Murky Depths".  We will be quite glad when it's up and running actually, as it's been a mammouth undertaking, (causing us to be sitting on the bed for 9 weeks with laptops till 11pm)

Yeah, sorry, I write as D.K. Thompson, but please feel free to call me Dave (that goes for everyone).  There's just too many Dave Thompsons and David Thompsons in the writing world.  Having people call my DK is a funny reaction to that I never saw coming.  

Glenn, please shoot me a link to your new website when it's done!  I'd love to see more of your stuff.

Favourite story from this issue (and why), anybody? Mine's 'Day Boy' (read it twice just to make sure it hadn't caught me in too easy-going a mood first time around), but it was even better the second time. It packed a real punch and the writing was great, both stylish and economical (a difficult literary balancing act to pull off). Looking forward to more from Trent Jamieson.

"Day Boy" flat-out kicked my ass.  Lean and mean violence, dialogue, and world-building, with vampires.  It might be one of my favorite stories in Murky Depths period, not just this issue.  I could do with more from Trent Jamieson, too.

And there were a lot of good stories in this issue.  Edward Morris dished out another mean tale.  My buddy and I were talking about how we could almost see Luke Cooper doing the art in Hellblazer comics.  His illustrations are Bradstreet-like.  I can't think of one that I didn't like.  Everyone who contributed to this issue should be proud.

I enjoyed the comics in general this issue, but I really, really dug Mur Lafferty's "Rex the Dog."  The story was simple and funny, like a very twisted horror primer.  And the illustrations for it were pitch perfect.  

Thanks for the kudos, D.K. Working on Hellblazer is a dream of mine and I count Tim Bradstreet amongst my influences. Well spotted.

I hope you are counting yourself as one of the contributors who should feel proud of their work. It is a dark joy to take a peek into your vast and vivid imagination. It certainly inspired Vince Chong and Glenn James to come up with some superb art.

Hey Guys, it's Glenn here.  My eyebrows nearly dissapeared through the ceiling when I saw what you said about the artwork, Luke, co's I gotta tell ya, I am well impressed by your work! (LOVED that line about "eating the flesh like strips of bacon!")
Thanks very much, that made my day!  I was well chuffed to see that Dave has put some links to our website on his Blog, too.  Favour very much returned, mate, we have put about three on to your blog.  Actually, I'd be grateful for your opinions on the site, as it's only been up a week, (and anyone else reading this, too!) It's taken ages to build, and the address is www.gjamesgothicworks.com, so please check it out.  We have set up a forum and guestbook, too, so please feel free to drop in!

Absolutely, man. Absolutely