Author Archives: Wayne Smallman

About Wayne Smallman

When you're young, you think you know everything and life is indistinguishable from a game. It's only when you get older — when you begin to doubt the authenticity of the event and question the rules — that experience begins to count for something. And to quote the inimitable Forbes Bingley, a recurring character of several novels: "Life makes you stronger, at a price." In a sense, life has been preparation — practice, perhaps — for this wild stab at being an author. After all, how hard can it be, putting one word after another? Of course, like anything else in life, you only get out what you put in. At times, writing is both cathartic and semi autobiographical, where I catch myself looking backwards whimsically, lustily, with regret, a wry smile, a despondent glower or growing doubt. But writing is also a journey, one with no intentional destination, just waypoints I may navigate towards from time to time, at leisure. Though I must admit, it's a journey I would prefer not to make alone.

A photographical post apocalyptic earth

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Earth’s plight is not nearly as severe as our own; whatever we humans do to ourselves, the world will recover. That aside, have you ever wondered what a post apocalyptic earth would look like?

Vladimir Manyuhin starts with real photographs, adding digital decay and overgrowth to create an eerily realistic sense of how the world might look long after most humans are gone.

Wonderful stuff, and very I Am Legend. And, if you like Vladimir’s idea of a world after humans have flicked the self-destuct switch, maybe you’ll enjoy my own take on a post apocalyptic world in Earth Day, my first novella.

Mr. Smallman on DeviantArt

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Year ago, when I first wrote Perditions End, the first in the tetralogy I’m silently (though not secretly) working on, I decided to do some accompanying illustrations. Since then, Perditions End has become nothing more than a mere first passable attempt at what the final novel will sure be, and those drawings languished in a drawer somewhere.

However, I took it upon myself to digitise them (photographing them on my bed, if that even counts) .. and promptly forgot about those, just as I did the original dead tree format.

Well, I’ve decided to share those ancient scrawls and scribbles on DeviantArt, for your visual delectation / amusement.

Low-fi sci-fi?

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Apparently, science fiction is creeping into more mainstream films. And why not? As a source of escapism, science fiction is, as they say (and without any care for sounding cliché), the final frontier.

By skirting some of the more obvious themes of science fiction, the idea appears to be “Oh, and by the way, there are aliens, too.” or “Uh yeah, this is twenty-five years into the future.” but without the heavier details that would betray a movie as being science fiction.

When trying to explain Ascending Angels, an in-development (written, but awaiting chronological tweaks) novel of mine, I am often inclined not to mention science fiction at all, since it falls into this hinterland of incidental science fiction layered just beneath the core action thriller threads with elements of fantasy. In essence, Ascending Angels is a heist, interwoven with abrupt action sequences and elements of sheer fantasia, but the feel isn’t that of science fiction at all.

So for me personally, this creeping motion of science fiction into mainstream is welcomed by me, as this will inevitably spill over into literary escapism, too.

The long play

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So I’ve suspended two novel projects because of the “long play” I have in mind, where (as I’ve teased once or twice) everything’s connected.

Everything’s connected

What does that mean for projects moving forward? I have to create a several things:

  1. Firstly, a time line into which each and every novel I write from now on will have to fit within.
  2. Secondly, decide what technologies, scientific developments and social changes I intend dealing with, as continuous themes, interweaving and spanning the various novels.
  3. Thirdly, which characters or families bestride these novels, why, and how they interact and intersect with the aforementioned.

Now, I know none of this is entirely new, but it’s something I feel needs to be done, rather than writing one-off, disparate and disconnected stories.

Aim high and be bold!

Instead, I want a narrative that spans decades, and towards the end, centuries:

  • Earth Day, the first novel (or novella, if you like) is more of a fable than science fiction.
  • Stunned (presently on pause), is a comedy thriller with a political slant.
  • Wraith (also on pause and presently only provisionally titled), is a superhero story with a difference.
  • Perditions End is a time travel saga, where our protagonist is attempting to solve a series of murders that implicate him as the aggressor.
  • Ascending Angels (written but pending a complete re-write of Perditions End, the first, or “prequel”) is a very ambitious novel with several very well-defined threads, the first of which is a complex heist thriller, the second is a metaphysical exploration, including a search and rescue, while the third is a race against time scenario, to avert a global catastrophe, invoked by the a conflict between two alien races.
  • An as-yet untitled and only provisionally understood novel, tying together Ascending Angels and Aeon, which will, amongst other things, provide the story behind Bingley and Forsyth.
  • Aeon is something quite different and a departure from the usual science fiction subtleties, this time, we’re deep into the realms of science fiction proper.

Aim high and be bold! That is my mantra, and I shall not shy away from this agenda.

Life, the ultimate phenomena

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Whatever your thoughts on alien life or paranormal phenomena, there’s no denying that some truly strange things have taken place over the centuries. Question is, what are their origins?

“That is the great question of this age, and, like it or not, its resolution, when it comes, will restate the meaning of man in the universe, and inevitably lead to the collapse of the forces that now oppress and insult the human spirit with their obfuscations and lies.”

Whitely Strieber, like myself, has pondered the imponderable and emerged the other side with a healthy skepticism, but more importantly, perhaps, a wider pair of eyes.

While we’re all so keen and eager to look outwards and beyond, staring wide-eyed across the cosmos, let us not divest ourselves the responsibility of an insular gaze, delegating such tasks to the religious alone and neglect an inward inspection of ourselves.

In the end, life itself, found wherever or whenever, is the ultimate phenomena.