Chronscast Season 1 Episode 8 - Inish Carraig with Naomi Foyle

[Dan Jones]

This month we're joined by the award-winning British-Canadian author, poet and essayist Naomi Foyle, to talk about Inish Carraig, the alien-invasion-cum-prison break thriller by our very own @Jo Zebedee.

Among the topics we cover is the quintessential "Norn Irishness" of the book, conveyed without ever lapsing into cliché, but yet acknowledging the unique history and culture of the place in a subtle and different manner. We also talk about the physiology of alien species, robots, the gothic setting, and the different identities and representations the book plays with.

Elsewhere we also discuss the possibilities and processes that enable writers to access Arts Council funding (England only) to further their writing careers. Specifically we talk about adapting one's own work for other media; Naomi recently adapted her own Gaia Chronicles quartet of SF novels into a multimedia stage show, Astra, featuring cutting-edge puppetry, acting, music, and technical effects, and she discusses the mammoth effort this has entailed.

@The Judge corners us with another fascinating talk, this time about privacy. Her Honour also relates her winning entry from the July 75-word challenge, The Eternal Scapegoat, and (we think) Sally Rooney is having trouble with the accuracy - and the characters - of her latest, er, science fiction epic.

Next Month
In September's episode we'll be talking to fantasy author Juliet E. McKenna about Hope Mirrlees's 1926 prototypical fantasy novel, Lud-In-The-Mist.

Index
[0:00:00 - 55:30] Naomi Foyle Interview Part 1
[55:30 - 56:42] Voicemail 1
[56:43 - 1:12:33] The Judge's Corner
[1:12:38 - 1:13:45] Voicemail 2
[1:13:45 - 1:14:53] Writing Challenge Winner
[1:14:54 - 1:15:35] Voicemail 3
[1:15:37 - 2:00:44] Naomi Foyle Interview Part 2
[2:00:45 - 2:02:49] Credits and Close

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[Jo Zebedee]

Well that’s the first time I’ve had a book dissected. Some great thoughts - timely since little Inish is now all posh and on an academic syllabus and I need to be all smart about it.

 

[Dan Jones]

That's very cool - in which syllabus does the book appear?

 

[nixie]

Well that’s the first time I’ve had a book dissected. Some great thoughts - timely since little Inish is now all posh and on an academic syllabus and I need to be all smart about it.

See I told you IC was your route to fame and fortune, that's why we need a sequel.

You may think I'm an obsessed nag but I'm really your muse trying to steer you in right direction.

 

[The Judge]

I hope to be putting up a post in the History section later in the week giving links to some of the sources for my talk in this month's Chronscast. Meanwhile, I thought I'd just drop a couple of snippets here which might (or might not...) be of interest, which I had to prune out of the talk because of length.

If anyone is wondering why the English royal family brought in the rule in the late C17th that births had to be witnessed by politicians, it came about after Mary of Modena, the Catholic wife of James II (& VII), gave birth to a son in 1688, threatening what until then had been the expectation of a Protestant line of succession via James's daughters by his first wife. Since only Catholics had been present at the birth, a rumour quickly spread that the child had in fact been still-born, and a live baby subsequently smuggled into the room in a warming pan. This conspiracy theory helped push James off the throne some 6 months later, forcing that child – later to be father to Bonnie Prince Charlie – to live in permanent exile in France.

And when I was talking of the lack of privacy in medieval Western world, I was going to say people lived “hugger-mugger” in the sense of a confusing muddle (I've always read it as being "all on top of one another", though I can't get any authorities to agree!) but in a moment of serendipity I discovered it originally meant -- and still does as a secondary definition -- secret or clandestine, which was rather fitting for a talk on privacy, but exactly the opposite of how they actually lived!

 

[Parson]

Good discussion guys.

 

[The Judge]

I've put up the post in the History section for anyone wanting to look at the aspect of privacy in more detail, together with links to some articles which gave me most help in my research The Chronscast Talks -- the Law and History


One link I've not given there, since it's more noteworthy for the author than for its legal content is The Fiction of Privacy: Fantasy and the Past by Guy Gavriel Kay in which he explains why his work doesn't use real people, which I thought might be of interest to readers of his novels. (That link is to a JSTOR article, and can only be accessed if you join -- it's free, though, and well worth it -- but there is a more accessible variant of it at Reflections on an Ethical Society – BrightWeavings)

 

[Dan Jones]

Good stuff, TJ. Especially about JSTOR - I've just signed up for free - there is a paid subscription but the free account seems to offer 100 articles a month, so unless you're a pro researcher that should be plenty!

The Guy Gavriel Kay article is pretty interesting, by the way. Thanks for the links.