Am I the Next Big Thing?

This is a trick question. Who wouldn’t be put off by a writer who answers ‘yes’? But then, who’d want to read the work of a self-effacing hack? Writing is about pushing one’s limits toward a fleeting horizon. If you don’t believe you’re the next big thing, then what the hell’s motivating you? 

I'm taking part here in an authors' ‘promotion ring’, devised to spiral out of viral control in an ever-expanding Mandelbrot set of drunken musings, I’m guessing. Lets just see what happens.

I was tagged by author Jonny Gibbings, who is undoubtedly the next big thing. He wrote a very funny book called Malice in Blunderland, demonstrating a talent for describing the most odious subject matter with the most beautiful and compelling detail. He’s also hilarious. His book has caused countless embarrassing moments on public transport this year, and will continue to do so for many years to come.  

I'm honoured to be handed his baton.

1) What is the working title of your next book?

In keeping with my first novel Gorillaland, I wanted this book to be called Puntland, after the semi-autonomous state in northern Somalia where the story is set, but my agent wasn’t keen. “It doesn’t really say anything,” she said, “except flat bottomed boats at posh universities! ...If you are writing about Somali pirates – always in the news, apparently unstoppable – then you need to flag this up in the title. Baddies like this are fascinating, people want to read about them, so give them a chance to realise what your book is about!” 

So I chose Pirates instead.

2) Where did the idea come from for the book?

Two years ago, while I was out deep-sea fishing with a new-found friend off the Kenyan coast, he told me that since the advent of piracy in neighbouring Somali waters, billfish stocks had been steadily rising. The pirate threat had effectively deterred foreign trawlers from fishing illegally. This got me thinking about conspiracies, and to what lengths an avid fisherman might go to ensure he could continue his pelagic pursuits.

3) What genre does your book fall under?

Exotic action adventure, though I believe I’m developing a new genre here, wherein the locals don’t just play walk-on parts as colourful extras, but are major characters, integral to the plot, and achieve cultural cross-over for a worldwide readership. This requires empathy with other cultures, which many authors would consider too daunting a research brief. But having lived on four different continents, I can draw from wide-ranging experience. 

4) What actors would you choose to play the part of your characters in a movie rendition?

Modern heroes are far more corrupt than villains ever were in days of yore. Accordingly, the hero of Pirates should be played by someone with a flair for the eccentric. I’ve always liked Edward Norton, who can turn evil on a switchback. Johnny Depp also comes to mind, though he’s an obvious choice for authors. We invariably show our years by picking a recognized Hollywood veteran to play the role of character who’s half their age. I think I’ll leave this to the casting director.

5) What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?

He’s the infidel in their midst, an obstacle to their unscrupulous designs, but nothing is what it seems.

6) Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?

The book is scheduled to be published by Cutting Edge Press in early summer 2013. My agent is the indefatigable Maggie Phillips, managing director of Ed Victor Ltd. As with my first book, she coached me throughout the process of writing this manuscript. 

7) How long did it take you to write the first draft of the manuscript?

461 days. I would have finished it sooner but I took four months off in the middle to try to earn a living at my other job as a gorilla safari guide.

8) What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?

I don’t know. A fusion of two books perhaps, from contrasting genres: how about William Shakespeare’s Tempest and Jeppesen’s Sport Diving Manual. 

9) Who or what inspired you to write this book?

Meeting and getting to know the real life character on whom I based my protagonist Johnny Oceans. He gave me carte blanche to use his own life story, and briefed me on the appropriate vernacular, attitude and weapons for my hero, which added verisimilitude to the novel. As one would expect, in the end much of Oceans was my own invention, nevertheless the truth is in there, though he and I alone know where the bodies are buried.

10) What else about the book might pique the reader’s interest?

Pirates is a roller coaster ride, the action rarely lets up, and there’s a ship-load of surprises. Still, the story doesn’t really deliver what some people buying a book about Somali pirates might expect: a hostage situation, the planning and instigation of the rescue. It’s much more complicated, and more political than that. Being in the eye of an incomprehensible storm, and learning the surprising facts behind issues that have been consistently misreported by the media, I believe will pique the reader’s interest.

The characters are certainly diverse. Fans of my debut novel Gorillaland will be pleased to learn my safari guide antihero Derek Strangely returns in Pirates. This time he’s forced to serve a terrifying apprenticeship. Ali al-Rubaysh, the story's key villain, is a veteran terrorist, tortured by the Americans in Guantanamo Bay. He's now in the Yemen, serving as a commander in al-Qaeda on the Arab Peninsula, and has devised an attack more devastating than 9/11. I had fun researching his back story; he spontaneously breaks into the Sesame Street theme music, which was one of the methods of torture at Gitmo. 

I suppose I’m most proud of my heroine Khadija, a plucky, unorthodox forty-something Somali, modeled on the women of the Arab Spring, who I hope will be an inspiration to readers everywhere, especially on the Horn of Africa. I couldn't have developed her without the knowledge and creative input of my muse, Kigongo, who also suggested some of the more breathtaking plot twists. Thanks baby!

I’m afraid I’ve only found three willing authors to keep the promotion ring going, but oh what a trio:

Douglas Galbraith

I’ve known Doug since the early Eighties when we signed up to the same creative writing class at the University of Victoria, and we’ve been close friends ever since. He's my bro, and a multi-talented artist, adept in music, painting, and writing. While concentrating on the former two disciplines for the past three decades, during which he produced startling pieces of music and beautiful works of art, he has recently returned to writing, and is currently developing a intriguing manuscript. 

http://www.soundcloud.com/doug-galbraith

Dan Richter

Any one who’s seen the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey will be familiar with Dan’s work. In the film’s opening sequence, entitled The Dawn of Man, he plays the man-ape that throws the bone tool into space. In November 2000, I had the privilege of taking him and his son Will to meet mountain gorillas in the wild. Tramping up the slopes of a volcano I learned about Dan’s amazing lives - that’s right, he’s lived a few, including a spell as personal assistant to John Lennon and Yoko Ono, which is the subject of his latest book, The Dream Is Over.

http://www.danrichter.com/

Ioannis Gatsiounis

I first met Ioannis a couple of years ago after he moved to Kampala from Malaysia, where he’d established himself as an international correspondent, and we immediately hit it off. A collection of his work, Beyond the Veneer, was published in 2008 by Monsoon Books. His fiction debut, Velvet & Cinder Blocks (ZI Publications), features “ten politically-tinged short stories set about Asia and the West.”

http://breaklines.wordpress.com

Plenipotentiaries in the Mist

Photographs by Scott and Leja DeLisi

Leja DeLisi, Michael Kobold and the author set out with porters and guides to find Nkuringo

High atop a narrow ridge in the Bufumbira Mountains, the visitor reception centre was bathed in the first rays of sunlight. Outside the walls were washed with an orange patina and after years of rainswept erosion the buildings had become raised on their foundations. Half a dozen Uganda Wildlife Authority guards in green wellington boots were standing in a doorway, coughing and talking amongst themselves. 

Beyond them, an impervious canopy draped over a steeply concertinaed landscape of summits and precipitous valleys. Ranging between 2,600 and 1,160 metres above sea level and covering an area 327 square kilometres in size (much larger if you iron it), the Bakiga call this primeval rainforest Bwindi, which means ‘darkness’. Its full name is the Bwindi Impenetrable Forest. 

Despite being doubly warned, hundreds of tourists bushwhack Bwindi’s slopes every year in search of a rare species of the large charismatic mammal Dian Fossey called “the greatest of the great apes.” Mountain gorillas are only found here and in the Virunga volcanoes thirty kilometres due south. A recent census put their numbers at 880, which may sound low but that’s a population increase of more than 30 percent in the past 20 years.

I was delighted to be guiding United States ambassador to Uganda Scott DeLisi, his wife Leija, and Michael Kobold of Kobold watches - worn by Navy SEALs, Arctic explorers, and Everest mountaineers. Dressed in safari gear with our trouser legs tucked into our socks, there was no disguising our enthusiasm as we arrived at the centre. 

Modern, a guide from the local Bakiga tribe, introduced himself then ushered us into the gorilla briefing room, which was decorated with large illustrated posters filled with facts about gorillas, their habitats, behaviour, and the efforts to protect them. 

We sat down on wooden chairs and listened to Modern recite the do’s and don’ts of gorilla etiquette. “Should you need to cough,” he said, “cover your mouth and turn away from the gorillas. Try not to make eye contact, nor any rapid movements that may frighten them.”  

“How long is the trek?” I asked, grinning. My cheerful demeanor belied a trembling anxiety. Having the opportunity to guide these good people on their very first gorilla trek was indeed an honour, but the pressure to deliver a memorable gorilla safari had never been greater. 

The question was moot. Any experienced gorilla guide knows trekking the big fellahs differs greatly from one place to the next, indeed from one day to the next. Different groups in different habitats under different microclimates make gorilla trekking wholly unpredictable. 

I’d been to Bwindi on several occasions, but this was my first time meeting these particular gorillas. The guidebook was unequivocal: “Nkuringo is the toughest of all gorilla tracking locations and is not for the unfit, elderly or faint hearted.”

Modern smiled reassuringly then said, “We start from much higher up than where the gorillas range and usually find them foraging in the valley in the buffer zone next to the forest.” 

The trek back would be a different story.

Diplomacy and Birding

US Ambassador to Uganda, Scott DeLisi

At 9 o’clock we set off westward under a cloudless sky along Nteko ridge. Being at high altitude, and close to the equator, the greenness of everything was excessively dazzling in the sunshine. Scott DeLisi led the way, stabbing his hiking stick into the path ahead. Meantime Michael Kobold and I hung back behind Leija, who was determined to take the trek a little easier.  

Birds flew all around us, flycatchers, sunbirds, barbets, warblers, and starlings, darting in and out of the eucalyptus forests and cultivations like fretful scrutineers. The DeLisi’s stopped to photograph every new species.

“How did you wind up in the diplomatic corp,” I asked Scott, as he focused his camera on a Broad-billed roller that was perched on the perimeter fence of a farm growing beans all the way down into the Kashasha river valley below. 

“I saw an ad for the foreign service exam in The Wall Street Journal,” he replied, taking a series of snaps. He then turned to me with a rascally grin and added, “I didn’t know what I was getting into. It just seemed like a good idea at the time.” 

While undoubtedly it takes all sorts to make up a worthy diplomatic corp, foremost in a diplomat’s qualifications must be a stately approach and a cool head. Ambassador DeLisi possesses both these qualities, as well as a common touch rarely seen in his line of work.

“Hello, my name is Scott DeLisi and I’m looking forward to my arrival in Uganda,” he says in a tongue-in-cheek introductory video on YouTube in which he and Leija wander through a forest back home, wearing safari vests, binoculars and hats, pointing out the marvels in the trees. “We started birdwatching 15 years ago in Botswana and have since travelled through southern Africa Eritrea, Nepal and India, combing diplomacy and birding.”

Birdwatching is Bwindi’s second biggest attraction. The 25,000 year old forest boasts fourteen species that are endemic, meaning only found here. Twitchers from all over the world visit for the chance of spotting an African green broadbill among the mixed-species flocks gleaning for insects at the forests edge, or a Grauer’s rush warbler perched on a swamp reed. 

Meet the Roundstones

“You see that hill,” said Modern, pointing to a perfectly round knoll wedged between the forest edge and the buffer zone in the valley below. “That’s how our group of Mountain gorillas got its name. Nkuringo means round stone.” Suddenly a loud bark was heard in the forest. The gorillas were near.

As we started down the steep incline, between cypress trees and bean plants swaying and singing in the breeze, I noticed that, rather than one of his eponymous precision timepieces, Michael Kobold was wearing a Swatch. Not surprising in the African bush, considering a Kobold watch costs upwards of $3,000. 

“You don’t meet too many watchmakers these days,” I said, shadowing his footfalls down the slope. 

Modern the guide, and Michael Kobold

“I learnt watchmaking when I was sixteen,” he said with an east coast American accent that belied his Tutonic upbringing, “under the legendary Gerd Lang of Chronoswiss. At nineteen I launched my own company.” Gregarious to a fault and with an enduring twinkle in his eye, it’s easy to see how his personality helped him succeed. 

In a decade and a half Mike had almost single-handedly built Kobold into a leading luxury brand to rival Tag Hauer and Omega. James Gandalfini, Leonardo DiCaprio, Bill Clinton, Stirling Moss and Sir Ranulph Fiennes - “the world’s greatest explorer” according to the Guinness Book of Records - are some of the rich and famous with Kobold watches strapped to their wrists.

Even before we’d met he introduced me to the US ambassador and his wife. “Together they roam the world looking for rare birds and other interesting species.” And in the same email he asked if I’d like to become an official Kobold brand ambassador.  “But what a life you have led” he wrote, “and what a life you continue to lead!”

I was dumbfounded. As it turned out Mike’s faith in me was down to the say-so of our mutual friend, one larger-than-life character on whom I based Johnny Oceans, the hero of my second novel Pirates. Moreover Pirates‘s macguffin - that desired object everyone’s willing to sacrifice almost anything to get - is a Kobold watch. 

Now, barely a month after completing the first draft of my manuscript, in a case of life imitating art, I was trekking gorillas with my macguffin’s creator and his good friends the DeLisi’s. 

“We’re making you a watch,” he said, leaping nimbly across the rocks of a dried up waterfall. “It’s almost done.”

The Greatest of the Great Apes

Christmas, a blackback in Nkuringo group

“We have reached,” smiled Modern, standing in the valley floor. He issued an order into his walkie talkie and a voice called out from beneath the forest canopy, barely fifty metres away. “That’s the trackers. They’re with the gorillas.”

The first thing I noticed, as we moved nearer the group, was the absence of any fear odour, which gorillas usually give off when approached. Apparently the Nkuringos were expecting us. 

We were immediately engaged by youngsters determined we should join in their game of tag. Modern did his best to subtly shoo them away but they never ceased rough housing. One three year-old refused to participate as he was too busy whimpering for more breast milk, though his mother was clearly trying to wean him. 

We found the silverback Rafiki preoccupied with a particular female that had her back turned to him. Gazing longingly at her, affectionately clutching a tuft of fur on her back, he appeared to be trying to make up after a quarrel. His adjutant Christmas kept vigil, and was the coolest, calmest blackback I’ve ever encountered, though he did try to twice grab hold of the ambassador’s leg.

Safari, the former silverback of Nkuringo

Over the course of the next hour, as we tiptoed through the springy foliage beneath the Giant yellow mulberry trees, we saw all fourteen gorillas in the group. Like monks in an ashram they needed to be sought out in their ferny hideaways. 

The last gorilla we encountered was the sage old silverback Safari, who had run the group for fifteen years before relinquishing leadership to the incumbent Rafiki. I was told he did not give up willingly, but put up a bold struggle that lasted for days. The fact that he was allowed to remain in his group was testament to their humanity. I know, we need a more encompassing word. 

Safari’s age, estimated at 40 years, had profoundly altered his appearance. His hair was long, chest limp, features sagging. Having lost all his teeth, he ate only soft young mulberry leaves, and there were deep dimples in his cheeks. 

He regarded us with tired, opaque eyes and a perspicacious gaze that spoke of a time when he alone used to keep the humans in line. I understood his pain. We'd both been brushed aside for younger blood, for the good of the gorillas.

Whether as a consequence of apres-gorilla bliss or our ambassadorial trek, but as we started back up the ridge I came to the realisation that I too was an ambassador...to the gorillas.

True, gorillas already have ambassadors from their own species, gallant individuals dispersed about the globe in zoos and institutions, who admirably represent their branch of the great ape tree. Koko, Snowflake, Bushman, and Samson swing to mind. 

In the wild their diplomatic corps seems wholly staffed by mountain gorillas, stars of the silver screen and countless wildlife documentaries, watched by hundreds of millions of people around the world. But a well-protected minority sub-species made up of less than 0.007% of Africa’s total gorilla population is hardly representative. What about the rest of them?

If we are to consider the entire range of the two gorilla species, Gorilla gorilla and Gorilla beringei, we find a diverse ape federation stretching from the Bight of Bonny to the Albertine Rift Valley, encompassing ten African countries and four gorilla sub-species on either side of the Congo Basin. But Gorillaland’s in trouble. Because of a lack of resources, gorilla populations are dwindling.

“Time to step up,” I thought, breathlessly struggling to lift myself on to the next ledge. Once there, I turned to gauge our progress against Nkuringo hill. We remained below it’s summit. Above us, dark clouds were gathering and the wind began to blow. We had so far been spared Bwindi’s infamous weather, but it looked as though things were about to take a turn for the worse. 

to be continued ...

Greg Cummings is an award-winning conservationist and published author. His novel Gorillaland is available on Amazon

Escape!

ESCAPE! 

(1947 - 1954)

Dramatic Adventure Anthology

Tired of the everyday grind?
Ever dream of a life of … romantic adventure?
Want to get away from it all?
We offer you … ESCAPE!

The famous opening to the show, often worded to suit the events of the moment or season, warns the intrepid radio listener of adventure that is anything but... everyday. Like its sister show on the radio, Suspense, it is considered one of the top shows ever done on radio. Escape takes you on a ride into a world where danger comes in many forms, and you are on the edge of life and death, and perhaps you are being pushed! When Escape says romantic, we're not talking kissing, perhaps those kisses might be from teeming piranha! Escape is more Devil's Island than Fantasy Island. And it is wonderful adventure radio for the whole family, especially Dad.

The best radio actors appeared on the show week in and week out.

Some of the greats associated with the show include William Conrad (Gunsmoke), John Dehner (Have Gun Will Travel), Jack Webb (Dragnet, Jack Webb Collection), Elliott Lewis (Voyage of the Scarlet Queen, Broadway is My Beat), Georgia Ellis (Gunsmoke), Frank Lovejoy (Nightbeat), Hans Conreid, Jennette Nolan, Jay Novello, Jack Edwards, Joan Banks, Parley Baer (Gunsmoke), Paul Frees and Peter Leeds. And that's only a few of the dozens of radio actors who were a part of the greatest high adventure series on radio.

Producer-directors of the show included William N. Robson (Suspense) and Norman McDonald (Gunsmoke), both masters of the craft of radio realism and action adventure, laced with thrills and chills.

Escape's writers (including Ray Bradbury), music and sound effects all wove magic into these half-hour episodes, many of which were based on great writer's tales, such as The Man Who Would be King, Country of the Blind, Diamond as Big as the Ritz, Typhoon, Beau Geste, The Fall of the House of Usher, An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge, and The Time Machine. Some were adapted from high adventure stories written in the 1930s and '40s. Many were written expressly for Escape. There are few clunkers.

All the popular Escape shows are in this fine collection, including "Three Skeleton Key", "Evening Primrose", "The Most Dangerous Game", "A Shipment of Mute Fate", "The Man Who Stole the Bible", "Earth Abides", and "The Loup Garou"...but each and every show is a fine radio drama. This is as nearly perfect as it gets, except, perhaps, that once you get in over your head, you might not... ESCAPE!

What follows is a catalogue of 145 exciting episodes of Escape - more than 72 hours of listening pleasure. Click any of the titles to listen online. Each one links to a detailed description of the episode on the Escape & Suspense website, as well as a free MP3 to download. Then sit back, and... ESCAPE.

1. Action
2. The Adaptive Ultimate 
3. The Adversary
4. Affair at Mandrake 
5. Ambassasor of Poker
6. Ancient Sorceries
7. Back for Christmas
8. Bird of Paradise
9. The Birds
10. Blood Waters
11. Blood Bath
12. The Blue Hotel
13. The Boiling Sea
14. Border Town
15. The Brute
16. A Bullet for Mr. Smith
17. Carnival in Vienna
18. Casting the Runes
19. The Cave
20. Classified Secret
21. Command
22. Confession
23. Conquerer's Isle
24. Conquest
25. The Country of the Blind
26. Crossing Paris
27. Danger at Matecumbe
28. The Dark Wall
29. Dead of Night
30. The Derelict
31. A Diamond as Big as the Ritz
32. Diary of a Madman
33. Dream of Armageddon
34. The Drums of Fore and Aft
35. Earth Abides
36. The Earthmen
37. The Fall of the House of Usher
38. The Far Away Island
39. Figure a Dame
40. Finger of Doom
41. Flood on the Goodwins
42. The Follower
43. Four Went Home
44. The Fourth Man
45. Funeral Fires
46. The Game
47. A Good Thing
48. Green Splotches
49. Gringo
50. Habit
51. The Heart of Kali
52. How Love Came to Professor Guildea
53. I Saw Myself Running
54. Incident in Quito
55. The Invader
56. The Island
57. Jetsam
58. Jimmy Goggles the God
59. John Jack Todd
60. Judegment Day at Cripple Deer
61. The Killer Mine
62. King of Owanatu
63. Leiningen Versus the Ants
64. Letter from Jason
65. Lily and the Colonel
66. The Log
67. Log of the Evening Star
68. The Lost Special
69. Macao
70. The Man Who Could Work Miracles
71. The Man Who Liked Dickens
72. The Man Who Stole the Bible
73. The Man Who Would Be King
74. Maracas
75. The Match
76. The Most Dangerous Game
77. Night in Havana
78. Night of the Guns
79. North of Polaris
80. An Occurance at Owl Creek Bridge
81. One Eighth Apache (re-creation)
82. The Open Boat
83. Operation Fleur-de-Lys
84. An Ordinary Man
85. The Outer Limit
86. The Outstation
87. Pagosa
88. Papa Benjamin
89. Pass to Berlin 
90. A Passenger to Bali
91. The Pistol
92. Poison
93. Port Royal
94. Power of Hammer
95. Present Tense
96. Pressure
97. The Price of the Head
98. The Red Forest
99. The Red Mark
100. Red Wine
101. The Return
102. The Rim of Terror
103. Ring of Thoth
104. Roulette
105. The Running Man
106. The Scarlett Plague
107. The Second Class Passenger
108. The Second Shot
109. Seeds of Greed
110. Serenade for a Cobra
111. Seven Hours to Freedom
112. The Shanghai Document
113. Shark Bait
114. A Shipment of Mute Fate
115. A Sleeping Draught
116. Snake Doctor
117. Something for Nothing
118. A Study in Wax
119. Sundown
120. The Sure Thing
121. Taboo
122. The Target
123. The Thirteenth Truck
124. Three Good Witnesses
125. Three Skeleton Key
126. The Time Machine
127. A Tooth for Paul Revere
128. Train from Oebisfelde
129. The Tramp
130. Treasure Incorporated
131. Two and Two Make Four
132. Two Came Back
133. Two if by Sea
134. Typhoon
135. The Untouchable
136. The Vanishing Lady
137. The Vessel of Wrath
138. Violent Night
139. The Voyages of Sinbad
140. When the Man Comes, Follow Him
141. Wild Jack Rhett
142. Wild Oranges
143. Yellow Wake
144. The Young Man with Cream Tarts
145. Zero Hour