Welcome to William Latham's Author Site

You can’t make this stuff up.

As followers of this site are likely aware, Powys Media lost the rights to Space:1999, which resulted in the print-on-demand service used to publish the books basically disabling the account, and low-and-behold, the entire book line is now unavailable.

So, in most depressing to least depressing news…

• Neither Powys Media nor your humble author have copies of Odysseus Wept for you, nor can we just make more.
• There is probably a limited supply of some Powys books still available from Amazon (who tended to order blocks of books from the print on demand service) — this would potentially include Resurrection, The Forsaken, Survival, and Shepherd Moon. I suspect these will go quickly (likely to be depleted within days or weeks of this posting), so strike while the iron’s hot.
• I am not going to say anything pro or con about any of the players involved in this recent turn of events, specifically because I don’t want to alienate anyone involved.
• I can make no promises! But I can tell you that the authors of the Powys Books own the copyright of their works (myself included), and collectively the copyright holders are working through a trusted representative on our behalf to see what options, if any, might be arranged to get some or all of the books reprinted. Powys Media supports this activity, so nothing’s happening behind anybody’s back, and we’ll remain hopeful that something positive will come of this — but there is NO timeframe that I can offer you and no guarantee that anything will happen.

In the meantime, I’ll make some general observations about what I would do as a fan/collector of something that became unobtainable.

• Libraries are a thing — but no libraries likely have copies of the Powys Media Space:1999 novels. However, all of you who have do have copies are effectively a library — the thought of mangling a collectible that will not look good if and when it ever comes back to you is probably a nightmarish thing to consider as a collector, but for anybody who’s ever seen Mr. Truffaut’s adaptation of Ray Bradbury’s “Fahrenheit 451” and remembers the ending with the “book people” — communities of book lovers want to share — I can’t organize this for you, but you can organize it among yourselves.
• Every year, this happens — Moby-Dick Marathon 2022 – New Bedford Whaling Museum. Keep in mind, Moby Dick is in the public domain — Odysseus Wept is not. Charging for it, or recording and selling the recording, of Odysseus Wept, is probably not wise — but meeting in groups, or having readings of portions at conventions, that sounds like a perfectly legit community of fans activity. Apologies that I made the book so darned long this time around.

At some point, it may make sense to lobby some organization or organizations to try to change the outcome. It’s probably too early to consider something like that right now, but as just one of several authors, I can say that I’m much more interested in people having access to these books than anything else. These books were always meant to be read.

Eventually, if there is no movement, I’ll likely create a plot synopsis of Odysseus Wept for anybody who wants to “know how it all turns out” but I think you can all imagine how that would not be my preference.

Sorry if this is all a nothing-burger for now. But for right now, we’re seeing what’s possible. Please don’t pick on Powys Media. They’d love to be selling you books right now if they could.

In past interviews, I’ve discussed the music that inspired some of my novels, but since I’m skipping interviews for the most part on Odysseus Wept, I figured that warranted actually posting something here.

Note, I’ll try to do this without spoiling much (but will hint at particular portions of the book).

In an early chapter, a character is quite isolated for a prolonged period of time (which was probably my favorite part of the book from a writing perspective). If memory serves, John Barry’s “Dances With Wolves” (the extended edition) was the primary music I was listening to for that portion. Barry’s writing for the American prairie certainly fit the landscape I was imagining.

There’s a period of the book where there are multiple groups assigned different “homesteading” activities (which was also fun to write) — while it would have been fitting to listen to some barn-raising music from “Witness” I was listening to a fairly eclectic set of albums, from Pink Floyd’s “The Endless River” to Owen Pallett/Arcade Fire’s score to “Her”, probably a mixture of different John Barry scores, and even Ramin Djawadi’s score to “Iron Man” from time to time.

There’s a big action scene that ruins everybody’s day after things seemed to be going so well. Almost that entire action scene, from its initial choreography to the actual writing, which took weeks if not months, had Hans Zimmer’s “Man of Steel” music playing in the background. In particular, if you hunt down a few tracks called “Arcade” and “General Zod” from the Deluxe Edition there’s a very repetitive theme Zimmer uses that was really helpful in maintaining a particular mood for that part of the book. But the overall score was very, very much a part of much of the book — it’s got a wide variety of themes and tempos that seemed to have something for every situation.

There are some trippy parts of Odysseus Wept. I think I was mainly listening to Steven Price scores to a number of nature documentaries he’s done (big fan of David Attenborough, I am).

“Man of Steel” is really the heartbeat of most of the book. You can never tell how these things are going to work out.

Yesterday, I sent my final draft of Odysseus Wept over to the folks at Powys. There may be a tweak or two, some proofreading, but I’m basically finished, at long last!

The final page count, before any foreword or anything like that gets added, is around 650 pages. I don’t know what the final format will be but I suspect standard paperback isn’t really an option for this book (Lulu.com spines struggle in the standard paperback size for longer books), but I’m trying not to be involved in the printing process if I can help it.

I’m also not planning on posting any more about this particular book — it has to stand on its own and it’s not a straightforward narrative in many ways, so it’s time for the readers to weigh in. I will be contributing to the Powysverse Compendium update (but only after its author has her own theories, first!).

Thanks everybody for your patience. This was a very, very hard one to write, not gonna lie, and even harder to edit. In 2023, it’s time to set my sights elsewhere, and I’m excited about that.

I’m guessing the book will be released in the early spring, but not up to me.

See you in 2023.

I’m on page 405 of 638 in Odysseus Wept’s second draft. As expected, this is taking quite a while, and I’ve yet to hit the uncharted waters of the last real burst of writing I did, where I know I left myself pockets of things to write, so the book’s likely only going to get longer.

I crossed over into Part Three of the book yesterday, so even I was surprised to see that Part Three is about half of the book.

Periodically, we’ve told people which books to reread in preparation for reading another one in the series and this time around, you can probably skip Resurrection but that may be it. Some of this book is a sequel to The Forsaken, so that comes with the territory, but I’ve mined little bits from all of what I’ve been thinking of as Phase Two of the Powysverse. Phase Two is everything that’s NOT included in the Powysverse Compendium (Vol. I).

There’s something of Jonathan Swift’s most famous work in this book. Less Homer than you might think, given the title.

This is not a book I think people will be reading in a single sitting.

So, while I’m busy working on editing “Odysseus Wept” I’m also writing content for a separate book called “Tropes” that I’ve been keeping under the radar. “Tropes” is a book of shorter fiction that usually focuses on stories that use concepts that have either been done to death or turned into cliches right from the get-go. So, obviously, I’m not claiming originality in these stories, but I will certainly do my best to say: “You know what? What about this take on it?”

The main reason I’m posting up here is just for a little bit of transparency. One of the tales in “Tropes” has a lot to do with “what happens when a kaiju dies in your city?” This is an older story of mine. But there’s a movie coming out from Japan that looks like it’s gonna play with similar concepts, and all power to that movie!

The often untold story of cleaning up dead ‘kaiju’ finally coming to theaters next year – Japan Today

I hope it’s a great film because obviously, I loved the idea. I’m pretty sure there won’t be much overlap between what I have and what they’re doing, but just want to state that my story is probably a decade old — they didn’t steal from me, I hope no one ever thinks I stole from them!

I’m likely going to sell “Tropes” directly from this web-site, so be on the lookout for that.

There’s a LOT of editing to do. But Draft One is, at last, complete.

Hey, folks — I’ve been taking an extended vacation from Powys stuff since last summer. Unfortunately, that vacation happened before Odysseus Wept was finished. I normally don’t like to leave things in gray areas, but this one is quite precisely in a gray area. I don’t really have any status update to give other than it’s not finished and I’m not currently working on it (well, maybe a little). Think I spent a little too much time on Moonbase Alpha and deserved a little Breakaway…

I am working on other things (even I had to be reminded that there are other books out there than Space:1999 books). Expect a Cold War thriller sometime in 2020…

Long time since I chose to update this site rather than work on the book — sorry about that.

Odysseus Wept is still in the writing stage — but before you complain, it’s probably going to be a five-hundred page book — for those of you familiar with my prior works, that’s like getting two or three books in one. I worry that the paperback spine won’t do particularly well with a book of this length, but determined to keep it in one volume.

An interview on the Powys site (www.powysmedia.com) will likely be coming relatively soon so I don’t want to steal anybody’s thunder by giving too much away here. But what I can tell you is that where Omega and Alpha sought to demystify Space:1999, Odysseus Wept seeks to remystify it. While this is the end of the chronological line for the Powys series, the overriding mythology is deep and broad should anyone else out there decide to pick it up (or even just grab a couple of elements and run with them).

This has been a very organic book for me in that I tried very hard not to plan it out as much as we’ve planned out other books in this series — what that means is that sometimes even I don’t know how things are going to ultimately turn out. Well, let me clarify that a little. I know the ending. I know the beginning. It’s the pieces in the middle that sometimes characters are deciding for me.

Some readers complained with Omega and Alpha that we were trying very hard to tie everything in the Space:1999 universe together — in our defense, that’s not something we listened to much — we basically used four episodes from the show to build a mythology — that fact that we could get things to connect from four episodes, while leaving out forty-four other episodes, tells me we weren’t as ambitious as people think.

Odysseus Wept is also going to connect some things together — some of which may surprise you. The Final Revolution taught a little bit of physics in the Space: 1999 universe, Omega and Alpha taught a little bit more, but Johnny Byrne’s Children of the Gods also seeded a little bit of what makes Odysseus Wept work. It’s not so much attempting to answer every question — we’ve tried very, very hard to build a consistent universe for a show that was often inconsistent. We’re going to leave questions unanswered — we’re even raising some more. This time around, in Odysseus Wept, we’re not “meddling” with anything from the original episodes for the most part — but perhaps we’re playing a bit with what you’ve seen in our stories and novels.

Paul Morrow is the primary character of a third of this book. So (spoiler-alert) where The Final Revolution dovetails with this book is a good portion of the way in — Odysseus Wept’s first act is tying The Forsaken into a bigger picture — and I’ll stop there.

I can’t tell you what genre Odysseus Wept is — aspects of it are science fiction, other aspects seem at least tinged by fantasy, but much of it reads like historical fiction, maybe even something Clive Cussler-esque, where historical elements suddenly start becoming important in the present.

The key thing is we’re trying to wrap up all the loose ends, while also establishing the foundations for what happens AFTER Space:1999. And as I’ve said earlier, I’m determined to not have a Star Trek: Generations kind of ending — it’s closer to The Undiscovered Country, but it’s the Space:1999 version of it (sorry to go Star Trek on you but aren’t you used to me doing that by now?).

I’m in the home stretch — still more to go. I’ve never spent this long working on one book before — and I’m just imagining what the editing process will be like — but it’s definitely nearing the end.

Thought you’d like to know…

I’m Telling Darren Aronofsky’s Mother! On You

So let me get the quick stuff out of the way – I’m definitely glad I went to see it, I don’t know that I need a second viewing, I have not seen any of Darren Aronofsky’s other films, and this is absolutely not a film for everyone – kudos to Paramount for putting this film out in theaters, and curses to Paramount (but understandable curses) for not knowing how to market this film.

What on Earth Is This Movie?

Well, that’s gonna take me a little while to answer.

It’s About the Anxieties of Mothers

Before I say anything else, let me catalogue something – let me catalogue a mother’s anxieties:

• I’m afraid I’m not going to live up to some image of motherhood (typically, my mother-in-law’s image of motherhood) – this is the role played by Michelle Pfeiffer
• I’m afraid I don’t have the perfect home – insert entire film here
• I’m afraid the world will steal my husband away – insert entire film here
• I’m afraid the world will steal my child away – insert last act of the film here
• How am I supposed to keep a neat home when everyone around me is trying to prevent that from happening – insert in particular the “pick up dirty tissues/pieces of toilet paper in the bathroom” scene
• I’m afraid of having children in this world when war is out there killing children
• I’m afraid of having children in this world when religion is warping the minds of others – but also putting out “representatives” in the world who want to prey/pray on my children
• With all the work I do around here, why is none of it appreciated?
• Why am I being judged by strangers?
• At what point do I go from provider of hospitality to the actual welcome mat that provides for the wiping of feet?
• As the heart of the home (more on that later) – I provide all the love that I can – and it’s never enough – worse, it doesn’t come back to me!
• Other people take advantage of my maternal instincts (portrait of a mom whose son is wetting his pants and wants to use my bathroom and I have to let him)

So, I’m gonna stop there, but believe me, I could go on!  In many ways, this film is a collage of motherly anxieties and fears.

It’s About the Assault on the Nest

Much of the most disturbing imagery in the film is tied to our protagonist’s attempts to defend her nest from a horde of assaults.  “Don’t sit on the sink, it’s not braced yet…”  How many times do we hear that?  And how many times is it ignored?  The bloody hole in the floor – and bear with me on this one – the bloody hole is a doorway (to the basement, yes, but it is also a doorway into some kind of truth hidden in a dark place). The birth canal is also a doorway that is sometimes bloody (and can be trespassed against one’s will). Most of the suffering in this film involves trespass into the nest – the house is raped repeatedly.  The order of the house is raped repeatedly.  The order of particular rooms is raped repeatedly – particularly the bedroom and the husband’s writing room.  The order of the marriage is violated repeatedly – how many times does the “husband” make decisions without asking the “wife/mother” if it’s okay?

Borders are violated repeatedly throughout this film – I’m sure someone could go write a paper on this film coming out at a time when part of the United States wants to build a wall around the southern half of the continent to prevent illegal entry (country rape) while those already inside the country are having their rights stripped and/or violated (personal rights rape).

It’s About a Male Writer’s Interpretation of a Mother

Darren Aronofsky is obviously male, but that’s not the male I’m talking about.  Lest we forget, Jennifer Lawrence’s character, while our protagonist, is a creation of Javier Bardem’s character – we actually see three versions of her in this film – the opening burn victim, the Jennifer Lawrence character, and then the new incarnation at the end.  He’s recreating her over and over, slightly differently each time.  Is he trying to perfect her?  Or is he trying to come to terms with her?  I don’t think the film gives us a clear hint on which direction it leans, but it’s obviously creating versions, so changing the model each time reflects at least some attempt to perfect something.  But what is it?  I don’t think we know.

However, and this harkens back to Mary Shelley, when a man tries to create something (without a woman), it’s possible it might lack a soul.  He’s not getting something right.  Message?  Don’t know what it is.

It’s Telling Us Something about Transformation with Imagery

Frogs…why was there a frog in the secret cavern in the basement?  Well, whenever I see a frog used in an image (“Gravity” comes to mind), I always see it as shorthand for a transformative process – a frog transforms visibly from egg to fish-like creature to four-legged animal in its life cycle.  When I see transformation happening with versions (see the prior section), I think the message here may have something to do with transformation.  Another aspect of frog imagery, however, is the common visual connection between a sperm and a tadpole – a sperm combines with something else to transform into a larger being, and a tadpole just transforms into a larger being – but in either case, transformation is key.

Gold-speckled strands…what’s up with that?  Well, we see that in two places – when Jennifer Lawrence pours her medicine into her glass of water, at least initially it looks remarkably like the mysterious crystal we see at the beginning and end of the film (and which we see in its “destroyed” state in the middle).  I’m not sure what the connection is – is it DNA?  Is it a wedding ring?  Is it coincidence?  I think the fact that her medicine is coming out of what looks like the product of a Nineteenth Century pharmacy is loudly telling us – this clearly isn’t really medicine!  Oxytocin is known as the “love chemical” or “love hormone” – it’s an internally generated chemical that makes us happy when we’re in love – it’s a drug.  And at the end of the film, the crystal removed from her chest is clearly called “her love for him” – so pretty sure there’s something there.  The husband has to regenerate the mother from this essence each time it is destroyed by…fire!

Fire…what’s up with fire?  Well, fire is another gold-speckled strand.  It’s destructive and it warms us – just like love.  It can be all consuming or it can be enabling – just like a mother’s love.  I’m pretty sure there’s something equating love and fire in this film.  Fire is also VERY transformative – and some of the first images in the film show sooty hands (the aftermath of fire) as a creative process happens, transforming ash to physical matter.

Okay, But What About the Film Itself?

Lighting – lots and lots of beautiful lighting.

Cinematography – lots and lots of haunting cinematography.

And again, like “Gravity” – it’s not a movie that’s really trying to tell you what it is.  “Gravity” is a clear adventure story, but it’s also much more, particularly on the transformation front.  We see a character evolve a lot in “Gravity” – but you were probably too wrapped up in complaining that it didn’t have a lot of plot to notice (come on, admit it!).  “Gravity” did a wonderful job with economizing much of its story because it didn’t want to focus on story – it was trying to tell a bigger story than its plot (can you tell I love that film?).

“Mother!” is a marvelous film in that it said screw you if you only focus on story – we always assume that films MUST have plots that are clear – as a result, it’s rare that we truly see film stretching its borders.  James Cameron can spend all the money he wants on blue people and CGI worlds and I don’t feel he’s done a bit to transform film (and I like his films!).  He’s made the colors brighter.  I love a good plot – but when I look at a film like Terry Gilliam’s “Brazil” – I marvel at it because at some point it stops holding onto plot as the only thing that matters (and that’s coming from a novelist who’s in love with plot engineering).  Like “Mother!”, “Brazil” plays with time.  Time as a constant can make a story predictable, can’t it?  You can also kill a good story by coming up with the unexpected time shift – it’s gotta be earned, though, doesn’t it?  I think “Mother!” played fair in that in the first five minutes you could tell that a backwards transform was happening – soot typically doesn’t become solid – it’s usually the other way around.

I admired greatly how the last third of the film was kind of a hodgepodge of scenes from other films – “Night of the Living Dead”, “Assault on Precinct 13”, “Rio Bravo” – do you notice a theme there?  The last third of the film was…a western, and the fort fell to the onslaught of larger forces.

Just like every fort falls – our childhood homes fall apart for whatever reasons – and I’m pretty sure at the heart of all of this – that’s what this film is about.  A house fallen. And the desire to rebuild it and somehow get it right this time.

And isn’t that a message we all need to hear right now?  In America?

I don’t think this will ever hit my top ten favorite films, but man, did it get my gray matter going, and for that, I say thanks, Darren!