The Middle of Nowhere

Geraldine McCaughrean has been my favourite writer since long before any of my own books were published. (In fact it was reading her adult novels back in the early 1990s which made me start writing novels in the first place.) I've never read a book by her which I didn't like, and when a new one arrives I always read it twice - the first time for the story (which will be be perfectly plotted, while still managing to swerve in completely unexpected directions) the second time just for the pleasure of the way she uses words. 

I've only had time for one read of The Middle of Nowhere so far, but I can recommend it without hesitation. Its heroine, Comity, lives in a remote telegraph station in the Australian outback, sometime in the late 19th century. When her mother dies she starts helping her distraught father to transmit telegraph messages. She also makes up messages of her own, trying to conceal from her far-off relatives the truth about her mother's death and about how grim and difficult life on the station has become, especially with the arrival of her father's dangerous new assistant.

Like many McCaughreanian (?) heroes and heroines, Comity is a storyteller. So is her friend Fred, an Aboriginal boy who holds her spellbound with his sometimes wayward versions of tribal myth and mission-school Bible stories.  But Geraldine McCaughrean knows that stories can be dangerous things, and Comity's innocent inventions lead to a whole torrent of dangerous misunderstandings.

I think my favourite of Geraldine's children's novels to date is The White Darkness, an adventure set in the Antarctic. In a way, The Middle of Nowhere makes a perfect companion piece, once again pitting its heroine against a pitiless landscape and a sinister older man. As in The White Darkness, there is madness and danger, and some shocking deaths. But it's also funny, and exciting, and extremely beautiful. The strange desert terrain is captured with a cinematic clarity, and the friendship between Fred and Comity is touching and true. And then there are those trademark GM similes and metaphors, whole interlinked chains of them, which seem to go off like strings of firecrackers as you read...  She is one of those rare writers whose style is instantly her own, and one thing which links all her very different books together is that only she could have written them.

The other thing, of course, is that they are all exceptionally good. The Middle of Nowhere is no exception.

Geraldine McCaughrean and Some Geezer at the launch of The Middle of Nowhere

The Middle of Nowhere is published by Usborne Books, and is available from all good bookshops, including this one.

You can find out more about Geraldine McCaughrean and her writing on her website.  She has also recently joined Twitter.

Have Yourselves A Seawiggy Christmas Time...

In all the hustle and bustle at this time of year, it's all too easy to forget about the true meaning of Christmas - which is, BUYING LOADS AND LOADS OF BOOKS, preferably MINE.

So, should you be thinking of picking up a copy of Oliver and the Seawigs for your nearest and dearest, Sarah McIntyre has produced a range of exclusive Sea Monkey gift-tags, which you can download in PDF form HERE. They're in black and white, but feel free to colour them in if you think they need it. (And feel free to attach them to presents which DON'T contain a copy of Oliver and the Seawigs if you want - the Sea Monkeys don't care).

Also, if you're handy with knitting needles or a crochet hook, you could create your own stuffed Sea Monkey toy to go along with the book. This one was knitted by Holly Skeet, who was my utterly brilliant copy editor on the Mortal Engines series, and also writes her own very successful books under the name Holly Webb. (The Sea Monkey is on the left.)

Pop over to Sarah's blog for a whole knitted Sea Monkey gallery, or just download the knitting pattern here.

Oliver & Iris

Way back in March or April Sarah McIntyre and I did this Oliver and the Seawigs puppet show - puppets and stage both made by Sarah, of course.We used it 'live' at the Oxford University Press sales conference, and Ed Beck and David Mead from MB Films filmed this version in Sarah's studio, The Fleece Station. I think this one was done first, and was a sort of trial run - I had a rather fetching Oliver hat by the time we did the sales conference. I'm still hoping it will ride again one day, but so far it's proved too cumbersome to transport to literary festivals.

In another Seawiggy development, I did an interview for a feature called 'Inheritance Books' on Mel Giedroyc's Four O'Clock Show on Radio 4 Extra. You can hear it here:



Coincidentally, Mel Giedroyc is appearing at the moment in The Opinion Makers, a new musical by my old friends Brian Mitchell and Joseph Nixon. I haven't seen it yet, but I have seen almost all the other plays they've written since the mid-1990s, like this one and this one, and I'm sure it will be brilliant. It's just finishing its run at the Mercury Theatre, Colchester, and will be on at the Derby Theatre later this month.

Oliver and the Seawigs, meanwhile, is available from all good bookshops.

A Walk on Hameldown

Last week, in between downpours, I took the dog for a quick walk up the hill outside the village...

I hadn't planned to go far, but when I reached the top it was so nice in the wind and the autumn sunshine that I kept going. I ended up walking right along the back of Hameldown hill, much to Frodo's delight.

I always wonder about these old posts, which are dotted all over the top of Hameldown.  I've read that they were erected in the war to stop German gliders landing and were originally much bigger, with barbed wire strung between - but why would you land a glider on top of Hameldown? It's a big old boggy hill in the middle of nowhere. Anyway, they look very good, standing there in the wind and weather.

Looking north west from the summit. In the sunlight over there are Kes Tor and Batworthy, one of my favourite parts of the moor.

Coming down off the northern end of Hameldown, I passed this monument to the crew of an RAF bomber which crashed there during the war.

At Natsworthy, the storms hadn't quite stripped the last of the autumn leaves off the beech trees. Sarah and I were staying at Wooder Manor, a bit further down the valley, when I started writing Mortal Engines, and this is where Tom Natsworthy's name came from.)

And from Natsworthy it was a pretty easy stroll back down the lanes in the evening sunlight.