Here is the list of articles in the ZERO MOMENT blog tour which ran throughout May 2010, along with the kind blogs run by friends of mine who have kindly agreed to host a rant, ramble, book review or intelexshull think-piece.
Category: ice shock
If reading ‘The Joshua Files’ has made you curious about Mexico and its rich diversity of attractions; ancient ruins in the jungle, old colonial towns, turquoise beaches, then here’s the perfect trip for you, exclusively researched by me!
Josh Garcia’s Mexico
Photo on left shows the sleepy old town of Tlacotalpan on the River Papaloapan, in Veracruz state.
Trip 1 – Veracruz State: Port of Veracruz, Tlacotalpan, Catemaco
It was here that Cortes and the Spanish Conquistadors first arrived in 1519.As a native of central Mexico – the capital, Mexico City, I hadn’t visited Veracruz until 2001. During the summer of that year, urged by my late aunt Josefina, I took the family to see this unique part of the republic.
It was the state’s Caribbean heritage that my aunt thought would attract me. She was right. El Puerto de Veracruz (Port of Veracruz) has a strong hint of Cuba’s capital, Havana, although on a less grandiose scale. Tropical rhythms mingle in the main city square, dancers and singers rub shoulders with street vendors. It’s not unlike the Havana you’ll see in the opening section of the 1958 film of Graham Greene’s novel, “Our Man in Havana”.
“You must also visit the witches of Catemaco,” my aunt insisted. “And Tlacotalpan! It’s like going into the past.”
Mystic witches, watery towns that seem to be locked in a forgotten past, plus some of the most spectacular scenery you’ll see anywhere in the world – snow-capped volcanos, impossibly green terrain ripe with coffee, vanilla and banana plantations, the vertiginous surroundings of the Orizaba mountain range, spectacular ancient ruins: Veracruz is one of the most rewarding and unspoilt regions in the republic of Mexico.
Thanks to staff and students at Oxford High School and St Gregory the Great, Oxford, especially librarians Elizabeth Sloan and Hilja Bassett, to staff at Blackwell’s Bookshop Oxford especially Natalia de la Ossa, to my publicist at Scholastic, Alex Richardson for supporting all these launch events and persuading the Oxford Mail and BBC Southeast News to cover the event at St Greg’s.
And to everyone who came along to all these events – over 600 people in total! I hope everyone had as much fun as I did.
Now…go out and buy ICE SHOCK and tell the world! Every little bit helps, honestly. Word of mouth is KEY.
I thought I’d start a series of posts about some of the themes in Ice Shock. My publicist Alex Richardson and I worked on this for the new author pack. In the next week or so I’ll drizzle bits of it onto the blog.
The book opens with a quotation from Jorge Luis Borges. It’s from a essay of his – A New Refutation of Time.
After taking issue with the very existence of time as anything other than a metaphysical construct, Borges writes:
“And yet, and yet . . . Denying temporal succession, denying the self, denying the astronomical universe, are apparent desperations and secret consolations. Our destiny is not frightful by being unreal; it is frightful because it is irreversible and iron-clad. Time is the substance I am made of. Time is a river which sweeps me along, but I am the river; it is a tiger which destroys me, but I am the tiger; it is a fire which consumes me, but I am the fire. The world, unfortunately, is real; I, unfortunately, am Borges.”
When I was writing Ice Shock – and indeed the sequel, Zero Moment (working title, pace Polly!), I became interested in re-reading writings about our human experience of time. I also read The Time-Traveller’s Wife – a novel which deals almost exclusively with the emotional possibilities of one man’s time travel within his own timeline and lifetime. Another old favourite was ‘Bid Time Return’ by the influential writer Richard Matheson, which was filmed as ‘Somewhere in Time’ – an old favourite of mine from the 1980s. If there’s going to be time-travel in Joshua Files then what interests me isn’t just the cool adventure possibilities (of course I have plans to use that!), but also the emotional impact.
Of meeting your parents before you were born, of meeting your loved ones after your own chronological death; all that. Time travel is too good to squander on mere adventure! There’s a deep philsophical aspect to it, too.
So, I dug out that quotation by Borges. Somewhere along the line I decided to include it as part of the story. A message from the enigmatic Arcadio to Josh – a warning about Josh’s destiny. And it won’t be the last…
Gorgeous party at Blackwell’s last night to celebrate the publication of ICE SHOCK. Children and adult friends, librarians and publishers my agent and fellow Litopian Richard Howse and the force of nature that is Bill Heine joined me and some wonderfully generous staff at Blackwell’s, Oxford to party.
Regular blog readers, FaceBook and Twitter friends will already be aware of my cake-fixation, so shouldn’t be surprised to see that I took the opportunity for a major baking session. Cup cakes and the biggest, fattest chocolate cake that I know how to make. With a filling made from melting Dairy Milk and Bourneville bars with a bar of unsalted Normandy butter. I had a piece this morning. Damn, it was good! That is the best recipe ever, ever, from a book that deserves its title: The Cake Bible.
Photos are now on Flickr.
Tomorrow, the Official Launch on World Book Day at St Gregory the Great School, Oxford. Where for the first time ever, I will read aloud from ICE SHOCK.