The Spoons That Are My Ears!

My digital camera has finally given up the ghost. For five years it did sterling service at home and abroad, surviving treks through mountain ranges, desert sandstorms and the humidity of tropical mangrove swamps. I think that forcing it to take pictures of phoney monsters was its ultimate undoing. Finally it could take no more and committed suicide! So now I need to buy a new camera. Here you see two of the last photos it managed to take before its demise. They are monsters that originally had no part in Twisthorn Bellow but were added at the last moment. In essence they were afterthoughts. The first photo shows Bob the Lock swimming serenely with his wife, Raypova, and his son, Paddy. The second photo shows Janrel MacScabbard balancing on a cairn that is being carried on the back of a dolphin. That happened in Patagonia; and if you look closely you can see a ghostly set of books in the mountains. Spooky! Educational!

I am currently writing my last story of 2009. The story is called 'The Darkest White' and is intended for a Bulgakov tribute volume due out next year from Ex Occidente Press. Lots of research has been necessary for this piece. The politics and history of the Caspian region during the Russian Civil War is bewildering, to say the least! My story begins in Abkhazia, moves eastwards to Khevsuria and Baku, then crosses to Turkestan in the last days of the Centrocaspian Dictatorship. Part of the action is set on an island in the Garabogazköl, and then in Bukhara under Alim Khan, and then in the Fergana Valley in the early days of the Basmachi movement, and then in Urga during the rule of Ungern-Sternberg. The Czech Legion plays a part later, and so does the remarkable Anatoly Pepelyayev, the White general who simply refused to give up. And this is the point at which my tale starts getting really complicated...

In the meantime, Happy Winter Solstice, Merry Christmas and a Jubilant New Year to you all...