Authors Electric

I have a shameful secret. My bookshelves are full of books I haven’t read. Shocking, isn’t it? You’d think that instead of browsing Blackwell’s and Waterstones for the latest hot reads, I’d get through the stack building up at home first. Good housekeeping, surely. Like eating all the chocolate digestives in the tin before going out to buy 3 new packets. Well, not entirely. For a start, less than half the titles stretching out until the crack of doom across my walls are down to me. When, many years ago, my husband and I united our separate collections of 500 or so each in marriage, I looked forward to throwing out the many duplicates that must occur. There were 6. From which one can only conclude that either we complemented each other nicely, or had absolutely nothing in common. I wish I could remember what those 6 books were, as that might shed some light on the situation, but I can’t . Cider with Rosie , possibly, and The Catcher in the Rye . Certainly not Science Fiction,...

Although I had a Science Fiction play broadcast on Radio 4 many years ago, I’ve not really ventured there since. I’m so much more at home in fantasy – problem with the plot? Invent something magical to circumvent it. For one of the Divide books, the US politically correct police objected to Agrimony, a teenage female elf, going off for the day with Squill, a middle-aged male pixie, so I had to invent something – and quickly! This is what I came up with: “Well,” said Squill, “I came to Tiratattle for an interview, and I’m delighted to say that I am now in charge of an advertising department. I’ve been looking for a face to launch our latest products, and Agrimony fits admirably. She’ll be famous, and she’ll earn a lot of money.” Agrimony had gone quite dewy-eyed. “She’ll need to be kitted out differently, of course – jade is the green of the moment in Tiratattle, and I can just see her – jade tunic, jade trousers – maybe even a touch of lime here and there.” Tansy scowled...