Star Trek 2 script ready and it's amazeballs, says Pegg

News on the new Star Trek movie has been scarce lately but Simon Pegg yesterday tweated some news that has got Trekkies in a frenzy:

For today only

To celebrate George Harrison's birthday today  the complete Concert for George will be streamed on George Harrison.com - HERE

Tarnished Star becomes LawMaster

There were several suggestion kicked around for a title, when it was decided to change the name from The Tarnished Star for the forthcoming movie. LawMaster, written like that, one word with the M capitalised, was my own suggestion and that seems to be the one we're going to use.

LawMaster
 
I like it - it's modern sounding and the capital M offers some nice design possibilities for the posters and so forth. Of course it's also perfectly logical because the main character's name is Cole Masters.

The state of play at the moment - well director, Neil Jones is shut away working on the script and once that's done, I'll be contributing to that first draft myself so that the version eventually on the screen will be a full collaboration between Neil Jones and Jack Martin. As Neil told me, "I want to collaborate 120%"

It's all very exciting and I hope that we produce a western that is both traditional and ultra modern. Things will probably go quiet for the moment, as Neil works on his new feature film, The Reverend, but we are hoping to start shooting LawMaster in 2012.

In the meantime I leave you with the official trailer from the current release, Risen which was also directed by Neil.

Dredd - first look

Back in the day I had high hopes for the Judge Dredd movie starring Sly Stallone - you see Judge Dredd was like our own hero and it felt as if we had some sort of ownership. Where Batman and Superman belonged to an earlier generation, I was there at the start with Judge Dredd (I was twelve when the 2000AD comic came out) and what's more Dredd, although operating in a future America, was British.

Then the Stallone movie came out and fans everywhere went - "What the fuck?"

Will the new movie, simply titled Dredd make up for the fiasco that was Judge Dredd: The Movie? Pete Travis is directing Karl Urban, Lena Headey and Olivia Thirlby are starring, and we’ve seen a few shots from the set already, as well as a nice image of Urban as the man himself, and this new picture is ripe and ready to be poured over by Dreddheads everywhere.

At least they seem to have the look right this time - the uniform looks modern and yet functional, and those shoulder pieces are not as big as those in the Stallone movie, which although true to the comic book style made Dredd look rather camp up on the big screen. And best not mention that cod piece.

Dredd is expected to hit cinemas this December.

Let's hope they keep the helmet on this time - that helmet is Dredd's face!


Sly Stallone said of his Judge Dredd movie -

Stallone's camp Dredd

"I loved that property when I read it, because it took a genre that I love, what you could term the 'action morality film' and made it a bit more sophisticated. It had political overtones. It showed how if we don't curb the way we run our judicial system, the police may end up running our lives. It dealt with archaic governments; it dealt with cloning and all kinds of things that could happen in the future. It was also bigger than any film I've done in its physical stature and the way it was designed. All the people were dwarfed by the system and the architecture; it shows how insignificant human beings could be in the future. There's a lot of action in the movie and some great acting, too. It just wasn't balls to the wall. But I do look back on Judge Dredd as a real missed opportunity. It seemed that lots of fans had a problem with Dredd removing his helmet, because he never does in the comic books. But for me it is more about wasting such great potential there was in that idea; just think of all the opportunities there were to do interesting stuff with the Cursed Earth scenes. It didn't live up to what it could have been. It probably should have been much more comic, really humorous, and fun. What I learned out of that experience was that we shouldn't have tried to make it Hamlet; it's more Hamlet and Eggs"

THE OLD AND THE NEW - NEW DELTA ROSE EXTRACT

(Being reposted and reworked from an earlier article on The Archive) - Where do your ideas come from?

That question is asked of all writers at one time or another, and the answer is never really simple. Ideas come from anywhere and at any time, but with my July hardback, The Ballad of Delta Rose I can trace the genesis of the idea back more than thirty years. I'm not saying I've carried the idea around with me all this time (thought it could have been stewing at the back of my mind, alongside my desires for Angelina Jolie, all that time. Who can say?) but the thing that influenced the most important aspect of the novel was a story in a comic book I used to read as a kid. That story was called D-Day Dawson and it told of a character called Steve Dawson who was injured on the 6th June 1944 during the Normandy Beach Landings.

Dawson survived the injury but was left with a bullet lodged too close to his heart to be removed and, knowing that one day the bullet will kill him, he vows to keep his injury secret and fight on.

And fight on he did, taking more and more outlandish risks to keep the men who fought alongside him safe. Dawson was forever getting dizzy turns or temporary paralysis as the bullet inside him shifted yet closer to the heart, but he always managed to pull himself together in order to save the day. In one story from October 1975 Dawson thinks, "I've had another warning today that I'm not coming out of this war alive." In another story Dawson, convinced that he only has moments to lives, storms a German machine gun nest single handily. He did however live to fight on for another few dozen or so issues.

There was something heroic about  this man who had nothing to lose that appealed to us schoolkids. He was the ultimate soldier since he didn't fear death and was in many ways already dead.

The story was a favourite of mine and it ran originally between March 1975 and May 1976 and then returned for a final series between August 1976 and January 1977. Dawson did eventually die but not from the actual bullet but by an extreme act of self sacrifice that saved his comrades. It was a bleak, downbeat ending to a reader favourite but then Battle Picture Weekly was always unpredicatable.

"He had to die,' said Eric Hebden, the writer who eventually killed Dawson. "It was a chronological story, we couldn't prolong it any further. Once he reached Berlin it had to end."


I remember being upset at the time, as were other Battle readers. In fact one reader,  Derek O'Byrne of Dublin even wrote a poem and had it printed in the Comic's 5th November 1977 issue. And if by some chance a grown up Derek does read this article, there is a scan of your tribute illustrating this article.

At the time schoolkids all across Britain went into mourning, for just as grown men where shocked into mourning when Sherlock Holmes supposedly died after his battle with Moriarty at the Reichenbach Falls, we too were deeply affected by the loss of our hero.

Now I've a collection of Battle comics that I'd kept since I was a kid and a couple of years back when rereading some of these old issues, I suddenly thought the idea of a man doomed by a bullet lodged close to his heart had some mileage. And thus the idea for my third Black Horse Western, The Ballad of Delta Rose was born.



Like Dawson, Delta Rose has a bullet lodged inside him, one that can't be removed and will eventually kill him, but it is there that all similarity and debt to D Day Dawson ends. I approached fellow western writer, Dr Keith Souter and asked him about the effects a bullet lodged inside a human body, checking if it was feasible and indeed possible. I was told it was and was also given some documented evidence of this actually happening. And the novel grew from there. What's more I think it's the best thing I've ever written - the style is much more hardboiled than anything I've ever done and perhaps because I always had this beloved comic strip at the back of my mind, I managed to create something much larger than life, but at the same time keep it credible and grounded in a kind of fictional reality.

Delta Rose will be published on the 29th of June 2011 by Robert Hale LTD on its Black Horse Western imprint. The Black Horse Titles are primarily intended for the library trade and as such have limited print runs. My past titles have sold out quickly and Delta Rose is currently topping the pre-order western charts at Amazon and also at no 2 in the western charts proper. Pre-ordering means you are guaranteed a copy and no money will be taken from accounts until the book is ready to be shipped in July.

Order it HERE

Below find an exclusive all new extract from The Ballad of Delta Rose

‘Then I’m asking,’ the sheriff’s jaw took on a hard line and his eyes blazed. For all his advanced years he certainly didn’t seem the sort of man to take too much nonsense.’

            ‘Delta.’

            ‘Anymore name?’

            ‘Just Delta.’

            ‘You from down South?’

            Delta’s eyes narrowed. ‘I was,’ he said.

            ‘Well, Mr Delta do you want to tell me your business in Hayes?’

            ‘I’ve got no business here. I was just passing through on my way someplace else. It’s been a long ride and I needed to get out of the sun.’

            The sheriff nodded. ‘Then you’ll be moving on?’

            ‘I will.’

            ‘When?’

Delta didn’t much like the sheriff’s tone but he decided it wasn’t worth kicking up a fuss. He had hoped on maybe taking a bed in town for the night, before moving off in the morning, but all of a sudden that didn’t seem such a good idea. He didn’t have too far to go now, maybe another ten miles or so, and riding out immediately would sure avoid any potential trouble. There was also the possibility that someone in town, one of the old timers, someone who had been here when the town was nothing more than a saloon and a cathouse, would recognise him and that word would reach Etta that he was back.

            ‘Just as soon as I finish with you,’ Delta reached into his shirt and took out the makings. Without asking permission, he rolled a cigarette and stuck it between his lips.

The sheriff struck a match against his desk and held it out for Delta.

            ‘Well,’ the sheriff said, following a short silence while both men smoked. ‘I guess there’s no reason for me to detain you. I won’t pry any further.’

            ‘Good.’

            ‘But I should warn you.’

            ‘Warn me?’

            The sheriff removed the pipe from his mouth and used it to illustrate his point, jabbing it in the air as he spoke. ‘You’re a stranger, you wear you guns tied down low like a gunslinger. I’ve got nothing at all against that but if you sling your guns around, I’d prefer you didn’t do it in Hayes.’

            ‘I’m not a gunfighter, ‘ Delta said, firmly. ‘And I don’t intend slinging my guns here or anyplace else.’

            ‘Good. Then you’re free to leave town, stranger.’

            ‘You running me out of town?’

            ‘Not unless I need to.’

            Delta stood up and looked down at the sheriff. The lawman seemed mighty sure of himself; at the moment he looked perfectly relaxed, but Delta had the feeling the lawman would be able to spring into action in an instant should the need arise. Here was a man he could respect and he certainly didn’t want any trouble with the law. Whilst it was true he hadn’t done anything, had as much right as the next man to go where he damn well pleased in this country, he figured he’d move on in any case.

• Hardcover: 160 pages
• Publisher: Robert Hale Ltd (29 July 2011)
• ISBN-10: 0709091885
• ISBN-13: 978-0709091882

THE COMPLETE LITERARY 007 - Colonel Sun by Kingsley Amis (1968)

"I cannot hope to surprise anybody now that I have sunk to my proper level masquerading as the concocter of crypto-fascist James Bond tec yarns,"  -  Kinglsey Amis wrote in response to criticism printed in The Spectator  of his James Bond novel, Colonel Sun written as by Robert Markham. "I suppose he refers to the single yarn, Colonel Sun, which I published under a pseudonym while letting everybody I know I had written it. I did not masquerade as its concocter, or concoctor: I concocted it."

Kingsley Amis may have seemed an odd choice to continue where Fleming left off - on the face of it the two writers seemed poles apart, but Amis was a massive Bond fan and had already written The James Bond Dossier under the name of Bill Tanner, and, to my mind, the novel he produced, Colonel Sun is the best of all the non-Fleming Bond novels.

The name Robert Markham was originally to have been used by a number of writers to continue the adventures of 007 but this never came to pass - perhaps, using such a high profile literary writer to pen the first of the continuation novels was a mistake, as it wasn't very long before the cat was out of the bag - Kingsley Amis was Robert Markham.

Discounting Christopher Wood's two screenplay novelisations, and the novel James Bond: The Authorised Biography of 007 (1973), by John Pearson, Colonel Sun was the last, new novel in the Fleming canon's original Cold War time (the 1950s and the 1960s), until Licence Renewed (1981), by John Gardner, who, like Raymond Benson, updated the character to the 1980s and to the post–Cold War 21st century respectively, until publication of Devil May Care (2008), by Sebastian Faulks, which occurs in the late 1960s.

How though does Colonel Sun stand up to Fleming, and does it deserve its place in the Bond canon? The answers to these questions are, "very well", and "certainly."

The book starts off in gentle fashion, with Bond reflecting on his life while he plays a round of golf with Bill Tanner - we discover that the story takes place the year after the events in, The Man with the Golden Gun. Bond has fully recovered from the bullet Scaramanga put into his abdomen.

However this quiet reflective period is simply the lull before the story because no sooner is this section over than we are at Quarterdeck, where we witness the kidnapping of M - a terrific sequence in which Bond narrowly escapes with his life.

"I wrote this book, sidestepping out of my career as a straight novelist for the occasion, because I was asked to do so and because I found the project irresistible. When Ian Fleming died before his time in 1964, it was felt that James Bond was too popular a figure to be allowed to follow him."   -   Kingsley Amis from the introduction to the 1988 Coronet paperback edition of Colonel Sun

When Secret Service chief, M, is violently kidnapped from his house, James Bond follows the clues to Vrakonisi, a Greek Aegean island, where he, and Ariadne Alexandrou, a Greek Communist agent, plan to rescue M. Meanwhile they must thwart the complex military-political plans of People's Liberation Army Colonel Sun. Sun is sent to sabotage a Middle East détente conference (of which the Soviets are hosts) and blame Great Britain.


Colonel Sun manages to retain the spirit of Fleming throughout, though the book does tend to sag a little in the middle, which is the result of an overcomplicated plot, but the Bond here does seem to be Fleming's Bond (which is more than can be said for many of the continuation novels), and all the elements that made the original novels so thrilling are present and correct.

"Why do you always include a torture scene?" Raymond Chandler asked Ian Fleming in a famous BBC discussion program.


"Do I, always?' Fleming asked, surprised at the question.

Yes Ian, you mostly did and Colonel Sun follows this tradition, but the torture scene in this book is cranked up several degrees higher than anything Fleming ever wrote. It's nasty, positively sadistic.


"You must understand that I am not in the least bit interested in studying resistance to pain or any such pseudo scientific crap. I just want to torture people."

 And torture Bond he does - in the most methodological manner possible. - the fingernails, the genitals, the knee joints.


"Just one more thing, James. This cellar is well on the way to being sound proof, down here in the rock. And blankets and rugs have been laid on the floor overhead to seal it even further. Our tests show that nothing can be heard at more than a hundred yards. So scream all you want."

Far more violent than Fleming ever was, Colonel Sun deserves its place in the canon. It's a brilliantly paced story, even if the middle does suffer from being over complicated. The character of James Bond rings true, and the book very much recreates Fleming's rather surreal world.

RELATED - There was another James Bond novel written under the Robert Markham name - Per Fine Ounce, was actually penned by Geoffrey Jenkins before Amis had written Colonel Sun and it was expected to be the first of the continuation novels.  The work was championed by Harry Saltzman to become one of the 007 movies, but the Bond copyright owners, Glidrose pulled the plug on the project.


Despite such promising-sounding material, and the fact that Jenkins was a best-selling thriller writer in the Fleming mould, had been a friend and colleague of Fleming's and had apparently had his blessing and input for the project, Glidrose rejected Jenkins' submitted manuscripts.

a page of Per Fine Ounce

A full copy of the manuscript is rumoured to exist in the archives of Ian Fleming Publications (renamed from Glidrose in 1998) - however, Peter Janson-Smith has said that he doesn't believe Ian Fleming Publications still holds a copy and that the most likely scenario is that the manuscript was returned for legal reasons (so as to not be sued in the future for plagiarism if a book with a similar plot is used). Jenkins' contract with Glidrose gave him a licence to re-use the material in the novel in the event of its rejection, with the proviso that he could not use any of Fleming's characters. Jenkins may have done this: his 1973 novel A Cleft Of Stars, while not containing any rogue British secret agents, is set in almost precisely the same area of South Africa, involves diamonds and gold, and the hero temporarily hides himself in a baobab tree.

And in another bizarre twist - 18 pages of the manuscript for Jenkins's Bond novel did actually turn up in Perkins papers, and two of these page were published on the MI6 website giving fans a brief glimpse of what might have been.

AND ALSO - You know I once wrote a Bond novel - A Whisper of Love, a Whisper of Hate but when I tried to approach the Fleming copyright owners with a view to them considering it, I met with closed doors and deaf ears. It sits unloved, by all but me, on my hard-drive. You never know, one of these days  I'll maybe give it over to one of the fan fiction websites.

Clint Eastwood's movie after next already scheduled

The secret to a long life is to keep busy, or so the old adage goes and Clint Eastwood certainly believes this and directly after his Edgar Hoover movie he will lens a remake of, A Star is Born - pop princess Beyonce and Hollywood legend Clint Eastwood are currently in negotiations to team up on a third remake of A Star Is Born.
Warner Bros have confirmed that the pair are in talks for a green-lit fourth version of the classic film, slated for release in 2012.

The Single Ladies hitmaker will take on the role previously held by Barbra Streisand and Judy Garland in the 1976 and 1954 adaptations, and Janet Gaynor in the 1937 original.
She will play up and coming starlet Esther Blodgett, later Vicki Lester, who falls for a has-been rockstar.