Shelfies #10: Michael Cobley

I really do have a lot of books.

At one point, about four moves ago, I also had a ton of vinyl albums which I’d been accumulating since the late 70s, and moving them and the books was, well, as today’s younglings might say, 'it was a mission!’ But the vinyl got 2ndhandstored (and damn, some of those I shoulda held onto), and I have attempted to purge my library as well, if with limited success.

Anyhoo, welcome to this distilled snapshot of some of my most beloved tomes (as depicted), and for the purpose of this rumination I wanna talk about Banksie's Feersum Endjinn, Tim Powers’ Anubis Gates, and Moorcock’s Runestaff books.

Feersum Endjinn hit me just at the right time, just a coupla years after I actually, finally got a story into Interzone (after trying for roughly a geological era). I`d already read Consider Phlebas, and hesitantly then joyfully read The Bridge, and then we got this in 1994. Man, what a bravura romp across a bizarre real-world background, mixed in with mind-stretching virtualities as well, and including one of the viewpoint characters relating his journey in phonetic dialogue. I know some readers found it offputting but, being of Scoatash extraction, I got the drift and impetus of it right away. It felt to me that this was Iain Banks saying, look at what you can really do if you want. It was inspiring then, and remains so today.

I first encountered Michael Moorcock's History of the Runestaff back in the late 70s. I made it into 2nd year of the Production Engineering course at Strathclyde University, but because my folks moved over to Dunoon on the Cowal peninsula, I had to stay in student residences in term time. So, my first time living away from home, and I had the full away-from-home grant (oh yes, at that time the government provided free gratis student grants to cover curriculum costs and personal expenses, including rent if living away from home!) Thus it came to pass that I bought those Eternal Champion books, quite a few of them, and delved into the epic wildness of them. The Runestaff books were especially resonant, being a kind of wry commentary upon the British empire and sundry leading political figures. And I liked the way Moorcock put his characters through the wringer, cranked up the anguish and hit them with various tragedies. A definite grimdark precursor, I reckon.

And then there’s Anubis Gates. As you can see, I still have the 1986 Triad Grafton paperback, so I would have laid hands on it shortly after having had my brain rewired by Gibson’s Neuromancer and Count Zero, and Sterling’s Schismatrix - oh man, what a time, what a procession of exhilarating novels and stories. And then I stumbled over Tim Powers and his ebullient narrative dash through time travel, ancient Egyptian sorcerers, a Victorian London brimming over with grotesqueries, and all stitched together with happenstance and fate's sardonic hand. Only matched in its thaumaturgic glory by Drawing Of The Dark, even though its structure was more of a time bandito tour of curious nooks and underworld sanctums. Like the other books, it remains a touchstone and an inspiration.

Serial salted-caramel Kitkat eater and self-proclaimed fan of “My Dinner With Andre”, Michael Cobley always has a Plan B (and a coupla other plans on file). He chills to a wide variety of music, but for writing it’s usually Hawkwind, or something Hawkwindesque or Shpongle-related. Even though he has crossed the Rubicon of Maturity (ie, just turned 64), he still harbours crazy ambitions along the lines of writing something that'll end up being either gamified or filmed. (He'll even settle for a TV mini-series!). With the Shadowkings trilogy and the Humanity's Fire trilogy sitting proudly on his resume, he insists there's plenty more where that came from, and has recently self-published on Amazon Kindle a new half-novella, Eye Of The Hawk, an alien invasion tale on steroids!

Shelfies is edited by Lavie Tidhar and Jared Shurin. If you are interested in sharing a shelfie, please let us know.