New Vague Review of Books

The one where it all started. In this episode we ask: did Roald Dahl's hospitality extend to pies? Does One Day lie about burritos? Just how sexy is John Updike? Would Atlas Shrugged make good kindling? Plus much much more (but not that much more).

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Call for beta readers!

I finally finished the novel I was writing with my co-writer, Toby, before he passed away. Now I'm looking for feedback so that I can start redrafting in the new year.

The Fourth Element is a 86,000 word sci-fi/dystopian novel. It started as a spin-off story from a series I was planning, but then it got out of control and turned into a novel.

When an earthquake destroys all civilisation in a colony that was once known as the United Kingdom, Adrian and his husband, Jae-Sun, are forced to hide from a corrupt government that want to recall all offspring produced during genetic experiments. Although he appears to be nothing special, this includes Adrian.

It’s not long until the pair fall into the hands of slavers. They’re separated, and Adrian realises he’s landed right in the middle of a conflict that’s been going on even since he was born – or created. As his master becomes more affectionate, and the government close in, Adrian has to make the decision whether to fight for his marriage and forever be on the run, or whether to allow Jae-Sun his freedom.

I’m looking for beta-readers who are open to LGBT, sci-fi, dystopian, and adult themes. The beta doesn’t necessarily have to have a lot of experience in sci-fi or dystopian literature. The main thing I’m looking for is plot consistency, character development, tension, structure etc. 

I plan to rewrite the whole thing (probably in 3^rd person) which is why I want to get to grips with the plot and characters themselves first. I don’t want anyone to waste time telling me about specific lines and paragraphs, although a comment on the overall style would be appreciated.

If this appeals to you, please email me at chazjosephs@gmail.com and we can discuss terms.

P.S, I have a full chapter-by-chapter synopsis available if you want to see.

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Let’s teach British Values in schools! I suppose that means hypocrisy, then

I meant to post about this when the issue was first introduced, but I was busy soaking up the French sun before I return to rainy ol’ England.

So as a result of spats between certain government officials, children should now be taught “British values” in school… but what values are these? Are we not a democracy, so shouldn’t we all have a say in what these British values are? I don’t remember being asked what my values as a British citizen are, do you?

Oh, so we mean teaching tolerance and equality!

Well, I’m glad that’s cleared up, maybe if we’re teaching tolerance we’ll have OFSTED stop running around telling qualified teachers how to teach and pupils how to learn. But of course, that’s too much of a dream…

In all honesty, I just can’t get my head around how Gove axes literature that teaches tolerance from the syllabus because it’s “foreign” and students don’t study enough “British” literature, and then he says children need to understand the British value of tolerance. This sounds a little hypocritical to me.

In all honesty, if we’re going to start looking at tolerance, we need to look at the facts. How is it that less than 10% of hate crimes are taken seriously by the police, if we’re such a tolerant nation? How is it that UKIP just got majority votes in the European Election, despite their sexist, racist, and homophobic remarks, if we’re so welcoming to anyone who isn’t a straight white male? I do understand that only 33% of the UK voted, but that means that 67% of Brits are complacent about such issues.

So if we really want to promote “British values” how about this:

Instead of barging into schools with high Muslim populations and telling them not to become terrorists (yeah, come on. We all know what this is really about. Don’t sugar coat it!), we start dealing with the REAL problem, which is that majority of British children are geographically, culturally, and politically unaware.

When I arrived in France and started meeting other students from all over the planet, I became aware of how ignorant I was. It’s true! There were plenty of countries that were previous British colonies that I had no idea about. Embarrassing. How is it that we’re so “tolerant” when we know nothing about anyone, despite the fact that we marched into their countries, raped their women and murdered their men, ravaged their lands and made slaves of their children?

Oh! I know why! It’s because these parts of history aren’t taught very well, and because the books that talk about this kind of thing have been axed from the syllabus. Silly me. There I was thinking that maybe a tolerant country would teach the mistakes of its past and hold firm links with its ex-colonies and European partners to ensure that equality really did exist. My mistake.

The fact of the matter is that this “British values” malarkey is the latest in a very, very long string of BS presented by our current government. If we want to enforce tolerance, we need to start presenting people (not just children) with opportunities to open their minds. For example, literature that challenges racism, sexism, homophobia.

An emphasis on languages, with the specific focus on USING these language skills and what it means to be able to communicate with different countries and cultures. Languages shouldn’t be a case of “should I learn a language?” but rather “WHICH language should I learn?” with the option of learning a range of languages (and not only European languages) and with government funding into student exchange programmes.

I’m sure there are plenty of excuses not to organise something like this, but similar schemes seem to work well in Germany and Canada… (Just sayin’.)

I’m sure teaching children more about the actual countries in the world, along with their cultures, would also be more useful that all that time I spent in maths class learning all that SIN COS TAN stuff that I don’t even remember – but you know, we use that in everyday life and that’s why we prioritise it over subjects like Religious Education and Modern Languages.

Anyway, that’s just my opinion… I mean, I could be completely wrong, and 67% of the population could’ve merely forgotten about the EP elections, and 90% of hate crime reports could have just resolved themselves magically whilst collecting dust in a deep dark corner of the police report system, and Gove could be coming down with an early onset of Alzheimer’s and not realise the mixed signals he’s sending, and I could be the only person in Britain who doesn’t know our “dark history” in detail, and maybe I’m just a dreamer. Just a dreamer.

But I doubt it. 

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The Hunger of Rats by Moriah Geer-Hardwick

The night the rats ate my brother Yuri, I slept so soundly his screams didn’t wake me. They tore him apart an arm’s reach away, and I didn’t stir. I’d never slept like that before; without hunger, without pain, without fear. I’ll never sleep like that again.

The day before, we’d helped the Ferals steal medicine from a humanitarian aid station. The Ferals usually kept to themselves, but for bigger jobs they’d gather as many of us from the street as they could. Humanitarians were best, because they were mostly foreigners, and the locals they used for security were unlikely to shoot children in front of them.

We gathered near the back of the building, and one of the Ferals cut a child-sized hole in the fence. Then we all rushed in, ran around to the front, and straight through the doors. The guards snagged a few, but most poured past them. We grabbed everything we could. There wasn’t time to pick and choose. What didn’t fit easily into our dirty little hands we threw down or knocked over. Medicine cases clattered to the floor. Gurneys, some filled with patients, were sent tumbling. Shouting. Glass shattering. Cries of pain and panic. We scrambled over everything, like rats up from the gutters in a rain storm.

Poor Yuri, he only managed to grab some bandages. I spotted a tall foreign man with a large black satchel slung over his shoulder and charged straight for him. I tucked my chin against my chest and drove the top of my head straight into his gut. With a heavy gasp he folded over and collapsed to the ground. I fell with him, grabbing for the strap as I went down. The moment we hit the floor I shot back to my feet, ripping the satchel from him. Feebly, he tried to grab it back, but I kicked him as hard as I could. He cringed away, clutching his face. I ran, ignoring everything else. Everything but Yuri. He was standing in the middle of the room, his bandages clutched awkwardly to him, eyes wide, frozen in fear. My brother was always too gentle for this life.

I snatched him by the shirt as I ran by, dragging him towards the back of the building. We ducked down a hallway, spotted a small window, and crawled through. Then, we scurried back through the fence and ran as fast as we could through the streets until we were once again in the safety of our own neighborhood.

When the Ferals returned, we opened the satchel. It was full of small, important looking glass vials. None of us could read the labels, but they paid us a thick handful of crumpled paper money anyway. They seemed excited and confident. Apparently, the raid had gone well.

I took Yuri and we spent it all on a fat summer sausage, the biggest we could find. We huddled together in the abandoned church where we slept and devoured our prize like ravenous beasts. We ate until our bellies bulged and the taste of sausage made us sick. The other boys who slept there watched us hungrily from a distance. They knew better than to ask us to share.

When it was gone, we lay back triumphantly, unable to move.

“I’m not hungry.” Yuri sounded surprised.

“When’s the last time you weren’t hungry?” I grinned. Instead of answering, he closed his eyes and rested his small hands on his stomach, contentedly. In moments his breathing drifted into a gentle rhythm. Lulled by the sound, I soon slipped into a deep sleep.

In the morning, the others told me the rats had come up from the sewers through a hole in the basement.

“There were… so many of them,” one said.

“All they wanted was Yuri,” said another. “They must’ve smelled the meat in his belly. You’re too big, so they ate him instead.”

“You should drag him into the street, before he starts to smell,” muttered the oldest. I grabbed him by the front of his shirt and threw him to the ground. He cowered at my feet, whimpering.

“I’m going to kill them.” I clenched my fists so tight my fingernails cut into my palms. “I’m going to kill them all.”

Blind with rage, I whirled away and stormed down to the basement. I found where they had come in; a small opening in the floor where the foundation had begun to crumble, exposing the sewers below. Furiously, I tore at it, working the bricks loose until the hole was wide enough for me to claw my way through. I dropped down into a narrow channel of putrid water. The stench and darkness were almost overwhelming. I could hear a vicious chatter echoing through the gloom ahead of me. Frantically, I felt around at my feet for something I could use as a weapon. My fingers brushed across a loose brick. I snatched it up and lurched forward. In the dim light I saw them; a torrent of seething, matted hair and filth rippling towards me, covering the floors and walls.

“Monsters,” I hissed, raising the brick. They snarled and surged against me, a mass of teeth, claws, and wild eyes. I swung the brick as hard as I could, and everything descended into a blur of screaming and chaos, blood and pain. I lost my footing and the weight of their bodies crushed me down into the murky water. A great silence rushed in, and then there was nothing.

Slowly, the pain and fear returned. I became aware of voices, soft and distant, murmuring away from somewhere beyond a cloud of black that refused to lift.

“He was down in the sewers. Killing rats, of all things,” whispered one.

“What would possess him…” came another. “Will he make it?”

“Not likely. There’s a bad case of rabies in this town. And the bulk of our vaccine was stolen the other day. By children, no less.”

“Why?”

“Why indeed.”

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Moriah Geer-Hardwick is an illustrator and designer. His interests include cinema, sequential narrative art, and robots. Mostly robots. He writes things sometimes.

First published by Every Day Fiction: http://www.everydayfiction.com/the-hunger-of-rats-by-moriah-geer-hardwick/

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It's got to be the ending that I love the most about this. The fact that the main character is going to die because he committed the crime of stealing, and then sold the medicine without really knowing what it was. The best thing about it is that we still have sympathy for the main character; he himself is a street rat and didn't really have a choice. To steal or die of starvation, and yet he dies anyway, only this way he dies after finding out about the death of his brother. 

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It's hard to be a Brit in France

My time in France is coming to a close, and I wanted to write a meaningful post about the experience… but all I could think of were reasons WHY it’s so damn hard to be British in France!

So here goes:

Bisous

Sorry! It’s not my fault we don’t run around kissing everyone in Britain.  Which side first? I’m often doing the try-to-walk-around-someone-and-both-move-in-the-same-direction thing, but with my face. At which point, French men have been known to take my hand and give me a firm shake. Yeah, that’s right. I’m too retarded for bisous.

Politeness

The French hate indecisiveness. I’m being indecisive because I want to let you make the decision so that I’m not causing any trouble. They also don’t understand when I wait to be offered something rather than demanding for it outright. I mean, when I first got here, the family opened the fridge and told me that if I’m ever hungry I can just eat whatever I want. IT GOES AGAINST EVERYTHING I KNOW. They also don’t understand why I apologise even when things aren’t my fault, or say thank you even if something goes wrong. BECAUSE I’M BRITISH, AND THAT’S WHAT WE DO!!

They think it’s weird that I offered the builders tea

Okay, so maybe it should’ve been coffee, but apparently if someone is doing work on your house in this country, you don’t offer them a drink. SHEEEEESH! So impolite!!

Tea

No one understands why I’m so upset that the only milk we have is UHT milk. Tea doesn’t taste the same, but I’ve learnt to live with it. My disappointment at the lack of rich tea biscuits is everlasting, though.

Wine tastings

In Britain, we do not spit out wine. Every wine festival has ended in disaster…

Please! Don’t ask me about English grammar

Us Brits just aren’t taught grammar the way that the French are. Yes, I understand that I’m an English student, but I still can’t answer your question as to why “badest” isn’t a word! It just isn’t, okay?!?!

Cheese, cheese everywhere! And bread! And more wine!

I find it hard not to laugh every time when the family are trying to make the little boy eat healthily, and they say “you can either have cheese or fruit.” Cracks me up. Also, every time someone asks for the cheese, and I open the fridge and say, “Lequel?”

People who think they speak English

When certain French people try to speak English and they can’t, but I’m too British to point out that I can’t understand what the feck they’re saying… Ugh, it’s so hard.

Eye contact is not an invitation…

I have to avoid making eye contact with men on public transport, because they seem to think it means I want them to come over and ask if I want to go home with them. No, no that’s not what my eyes are saying. My eyes are saying, “Va te faire foutre!”

Giant bugs

And lizards. Bugs and lizards everywhere. If the cat doesn’t keep bringing them into my room I might have to kill it. This is not cool. Not cool Grisouille, not cool.

Tone of voice

Sarcasm doesn’t seem to exist here, and I can never tell if French people are angry or excited. This makes for some very awkward conversations.

Coming to terms with the word “si”

Oui… Non… SI! Si! This word needs to exist in English.

Knowledge of the EU is too low to partake in serious conversations

I've overcome this issue with the aid of Daily Mail archives and wikipedia. Seriously had to start reading and looking at maps because being so geographically and politically unaware was just embarrassing. Embarrassing.

I have to formulate an opinion on the royal family

I’m suddenly expected to have an opinion on monarchism, and every time I agree with something a member of the royal family has said, I’m regarded as a complete royalist with the intension of condemning the French’s decision to behead their king. UGH, I HONESTLY DON’T CARE, BUT MAKE ONE MORE JOKE ABOUT THE QUEEN AND I’M COMING AT YOU!

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Curiosity Killed the Pig by Jaz Raffle

I love dystopian art so I just had to feature this. Imagine if eating meat were made illegal and to consider animals as sub-human was akin to racism...
This 15 minute film that was made by a Hull University student as their final year project. It's great, honest!

(use this link if video doesn't load: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G7kpbGzOKHQ)

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The Unexpected Arrival of the Black Guy

When I told him I’d chosen him as the character in a story, he chuckled and dug his fingers into his bush-like hair. I could feel his right leg vibrating against the table, sending splashes of my tea onto the wooden surface.

 “Call it the unexpected arrival of the black guy,” he said.

The sun had painted the sky orange and pink with wisps of white cloud when Laura’s trip back to the University of East Anglia began. The walk to the train station wasn’t a particularly long one, but that day it seemed to take hours. Laura’s travel case weighed a tonne, and even with the two of us dragging it, the twenty minute walk was verging on forty.

 “Fucking shitty wheels. Waste of money, this case,” she cursed as we dragged it over the icy ground. The case groaned in response; a gritty ripping sound that tore through my ear drums and made me cringe. We were silent for a while, as the frosty wind ripped through our coats and scratched at our skin. Pulling my scarf up over my face, I grunted and forced myself through the wind. The case gripped the earth as we heaved it up the curb and we heard a pop. The second wheel had broken and my right arm was beginning to ache with the strain. By the time we reached the station, I’d switched arms more times than I could remember.

“I can’t believe I’m not gonna see our Gaz for six months and he hasn’t even come to say bye,” Laura sighed as we waited on platform one. The train left in ten minutes. “He just sent me a text asking where we are. I told him what time my train was at yesterday. He’s at ours.”

I sighed, “that’s shit” – and it was. We’re pretty close, the three of us. We even bought each other the exact same Christmas presents, just in different colours – you know the saying, great minds.

The sky grasped our attention as we waited. Stars were beginning to crawl into sight as orange faded to blue. It matched my mood as the clock counted down to the departure of my twin. Looking over to her, I saw that she was as miserable as me. She looked up and shrugged at me in understanding. We went back to watching the stars. The train was waiting at the red light when we heard him.

“LAURRRAAA,” he called in his classic Tarzan expression. His brown afro bobbed up and down as he ran, flailing his arms and legs in the air like a clown. It was clear by the colour of his face – red, rather than his natural caramel brown – and the heaving of his breath that he’d ran the entire way down from our house. 

“Bet you didn’t expect to see me here.”

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The Unexpected Arrival of the Black Guy was published by InkTears in February, after winning an honourable mention in their annual flash fiction contest. 

Other winning stories can be found here: InkTears2 

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