Why Parallel Worlds?

Gandalf the Grey with Winston Churchill at the infamous “How to smoke a pipe” summit, Gandalf is giving the British premiere a few private tips.

My first book: The Lone Dining Society: A three volume shovel, is set in a parallel version of our own current world. I wasn’t sure if I would write another book, but then I found myself, against my best intentions, on the path to a second story: The Clown: The Deadly Grins, which is also set in a parallel world similar to our own, although set a little earlier in 1984. Although I do have to say that the year is not so important for my style of writing. The main thing is the story and character interactions themselves. You could probably take The Clown and put it in almost any time period and it could work, I think. Essentially the core of the story would hold it together; perhaps a little like the way the basics of a song, lyrics, melody and chords can be interpreted in many different genres and styles.

I asked myself; is this my preference? writing stories set in a parallel world? And why would this be the case?

Well, there are probably several reasons.

A parallel world is a little like a halfway house, somewhere between “fantasy”, like Lord of the Rings, or The Dragonbone Chair and novels set in the “real world” like the Sharpe series, or J.K. Rowling’s wonderful (written under the pseudonym of Robert Galbraith) Strike series.

As a young reader, I tended to be drawn more towards fantasy, in particular dark fairytale worlds, inhabited by dwarfs, elves, dragons and the darker, evil entities such as orcs and necromancers. As a child, and being something of a geek, I was very much into roleplaying, tabletop games such as Dungeons & Dragons and Warhammer. I loved to immerse myself in worlds that were in many ways, very different to reality.

In my longer toothed years, I find myself drawn more towards stories that are set in our reality, either modern or historical. I never got into the massive wad of superhero films for instance. I always found the concept of characters that are amazing at almost everything, a little boring. Yes, I often tire of my own company.

I think it is quite common that as one grows older, one develops more of an interest in history and also politics and current issues. Of course there are always people that have interests in these topics from an early age, one of my early boyhood friends was very much into this and could wipe the floor with me, with his knowledge of the world and current events. We all have our strengths, and weaknesses. One of my weaknesses was definitely my memory. I’ve always been forgetful and absent minded, but also, remembering names, dates and numbers in general, like how much my dwarf servant cost on the black market, is something that just doesn’t stay in my head. Indeed, I often say that these memories, or words, numbers, names and dates often take little day trips or holidays and I have to wait until they return from their “hols” before I can use them again.

I was always regarded as “quite clever” when I was at school: I got moved up a year early in junior school. And I remembered my class mates electing me to be on the school quiz team, because they thought I was clever. But, when it came to general knowledge, who the prime minister was, what was the capitol of India, anything about sport or other “cultural” things, I hadn’t got a clue. The quiz itself was probably the 12th most embarrassing moment of my life and after getting every question wrong in the first half hour, I proceeded just to try and make up answers that were possibly on the ridiculous side, because if you’re getting everything wrong, the least you can do is try to get a couple of giggles on the way to your ignonamious defeat. ‘The current Prime minister of Great Britain is Doctor Archibald Fuzz Bottomly.’ I said with a straight face. Of course, I wasn’t as funny as I thought I was; not much has changed,

I often ponder on the reason why I have a talent for, as one could eloquently phrase it “making shit up”. My theory being that I either didn’t know much about current affairs, or couldn’t remember details, so I had to make things up. And I’ve had a long time to practise my art. And it could be that the weather of England played a role in my development.

All of our holidays as we grew up were always taken somewhere in the British Isles, mostly in England and always in the family gypsy caravan, although it was pulled by a car and not a couple of nags. And we didn’t keep dags. And many a summer season was spent in the caravan with the rain playing a merry sonata on our tin roof. I would sit, cozy next to the window, rivulets of rain water streaming down the glass, and I would write my silly little stories: Felina the Fairy, The Octopus Empire, The Blue Bumbleteer and so on. None of them having the slightest grip on reality. Oh, those carefree, welly and sock soaked heady days.

So, to try and pull this all together, my early make-believe beginnings, coupled with my pull to historical, political themes and trying to live in the real world like a proper person seem to pull me along parallel lines of parallel worlds. Like reality, but with enough license for my bizarre inventions that swirl around in my noodle.

Of course I should also give credit to my many teachers through the years that put up with my silliness and gave me the skills to master the illusion of writing words that seem intelligible. I wanted to write a list of them all here, but unfortunately I can’t recall any of their names.