Category: Robot Overlords novel

I’ve Been a Published Author for Ten Years

Crikey!

Buy a signed copy here
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TRANSCRIPT

10 years ago today this baby was published, meaning I’ve been a published author for 10 years which is a bit of a pinch me moment… Yeah, amazing. I want to thank Jon Wright who asked me to co-write the film, but for the book I really want to thank Gillian Redfearn the editor at Gollancz who held my hand through the whole publishing process and editorial process, Lisa Rogers the amazing copy editor who I still beg to be my copy editor today because she’s just the best in the business, and also Genn McMenemy in marketing who uh still has lots of embarrassing outtakes of me floundering and trying to sell the book on on camera, and everyone who read it and said nice things about it. Thank you, everyone. Like I say I am really proud of it. The Authorized Podcast did a 10th anniversary special where they talked about the book and then I talk about how it was made and everything in a lot more detail… But there are things in here, you know, there’s uh there’s the short story in the back, The Mediator Prototype, I also have my shoot diaries about the making of the film and also put the name of every member of the cast and crew in the hope that they would all buy a copy which I’m sure they did. 10 years today, still in print, which probably says something… I don’t know what, but if you want a signed copy you can get one from my store, if not I think it’s ridiculously cheap on eBook as well the audiobook… Rupert Degas reads the audio! Terrific. Anyway 10 years. Wow. Gotta get a cup of tea.

Robot Overlords on Authorized

Long time readers of this blog will know that I’ve been a guest on the Authorized podcast quite a few times. I love Andrew, Hannah and the gang and have nothing but respect for the passion and literary rigour they bring to the podcast with their love of film novelisations. So to have an entire episode dedicated to the Robot Overlords novelisation was a real honour, especially as the film celebrates ten years since its premiere at the London Film Festival.

What’s unusual about this episode is that I’m not in it for the first couple of hours (yes, it’s nearly three hours long!). Understandably, they wanted to discuss the book without the author simpering in the corner, but they also brought on my old chum Paddy Eason, the VFX supervisor on the film to give an insider’s view to the making of the film. They say lots of very nice things about the book, which is going to make me completely unbearable for a few days at least, and they reveal connections to Psycho, Mad Max, Planet of the Apes and Pixar’s Cars. Do please enjoy…

And if you fancy reading the book, you can get signed copies of the paperback from me here…

ROBOT OVERLORDS SIGNED PAPERBACK

Ten Years Ago Today: My Pitch for the Robot Overlords Novelisation…

Extracts from my diaries on Wednesday 10th and Thursday 11th April, 2013:

Wednesday 10th

A busy day. Worked on all sorts: the games and novel pitches, the novel sample chapters, and tweaks to the script. All very productive.

I road-tested the novel sample with Emily (daughter, then 13), who really liked it. I then printed it out and proofread very carefully, then sent it to Jon and Piers. They both loved it. Jon made the point of calling me to say so. He got the weird sensation of seeing it through the characters’ eyes.

Just waiting to get the okay from Katie (Williams, my agent at the time at The Agency) and then I’ll send it to Gillian (Redfern, editor at Gollancz).

Thursday 11th

Last tweaks to ORO (Our Robot Overlords, as it was still titled at the time) before it goes out again to cast, production and finance. It’s looking good.

Also sent the novel pitch and samples to Gillian. Fingers crossed.

I was working my little buns off! You can almost smell the desperation.

I’m often asked about pitches for films and books, so I’ve dug mine out and you can read it here…

OUR ROBOT OVERLORDS

A FILM TIE-IN NOVEL PROPOSAL

The robot invasion was unexpected, swift and catastrophic.

The war lasted eleven days, humanity’s losses were devastating.

The survivors now live in controlled ghettos in servitude to…

OUR ROBOT OVERLORDS

A major independent feature film starring Gillian Anderson and Sir Ben Kingsley, coming summer 2014.

The film shares the gang camaraderie of THE GOONIES, the intensity of DISTRICT 9, and    the same heroic mythology of stories like STAR WARS. It’s aimed at the 12a/PG-13 audience: intense action, cool characters, terrifying villains.

THE WORLD OF OUR ROBOT OVERLORDS

MEDIATOR 452

“Our intention is to study all sentient thought in the universe. We will scrutinise this knowledge to ensure that no life form will ever threaten us again.”

Earth has been invaded by a malevolent empire of robots from the far side of the galaxy. They claim to be studying sentient life, yet they confine the human survivors in their homes for the duration of the occupation – over seven years.

MEDIATOR 452

“Don’t be alarmed. We wish you no harm. However… Disobeying our laws will not be tolerated.”

All humans now have a robotic implant behind their ear. This enables the robots to track our every move. If you step outside, beyond the set boundaries, you get just one warning from a patrolling Sentry. Disobey and you’re nothing but ashes floating on the breeze.

SEAN

“Dad always said being frightened of something was the best reason to do it.”

Our hero Sean is confined in his home with his mum (Gillian Anderson). He’s convinced that his dad, a missing-in-action RAF fighter pilot, is still alive. He and his gang of mates will figure out how to disable the robot implants. 

Sean’s mate Nathan is cocky, full of himself, and the first to run headlong into the action.

Nath’s sister Alex starts as the gloomy Eyeore of the group, but Sean’s heroism will give her hope.

Their neighbour Connor is the runt of the litter, but his ingenuity will save the day on more than one occasion.

They’ll dare to break the robot curfew, follow the trail left by Sean’s father, and will ultimately challenge the entire robot empire.

THE TIE-IN NOVEL

BY MARK STAY

AUTHOR’S STATEMENT

I was always a massive fan of film tie-in novels when I was younger. The revelations in Alan Dean Foster’s STAR WARS, Donald F Glut’s THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK, and THE WRATH OF KHAN by Vonda McIntyre were all favourites of mine, revealing backstory not included in the film, deleted scenes and additional dialogue. These books were almost the only way to experience the film while waiting an eternity for either a theatrical re-release or VHS rental.

But the golden age of film tie-ins is long gone, and many are released as an afterthought, bringing in a jobbing writer to hurriedly cobble something together using the script, some storyboards and concept art.

However, as the co-writer of OUR ROBOT OVERLORDS I am uniquely placed to get a head start on the film’s production and release, and produce a novel that every fan of the film will want to read.

Aimed at the same YA/Family audience as the film, the tie-in novel of OUR ROBOT OVERLORDS will get inside the heads of the characters that director Jon Wright and I have created in a way that film cannot. It will be pacy, action-packed, commercial and will be designed to stand-alone as a gripping read.

We also want to make Gollancz full partners in the film. We can offer exclusive additional material: concept art, storyboards, filmmaker/actor Q&As, webchats and much more.

The novel will also be part of a bigger brand-building exercise that includes the film, its sequels, games, toys, collectibles and future books.

There is also a great opportunity for the film-makers and Gollancz to work together; cross-promoting our film to your fanbase of Gollancz Geeks, and your prestigious list of titles to the film’s fans.

Please find attached sample chapters from the proposed book, concept art and storyboards.

To see a sales trailer, using clips from other movies to give you an idea of the tone and style of the film, visit here (I’ve removed the link as it no longer exists).

Ten Years Ago Today: Robot Overlord Rewrites and Panic Attacks…

Here’s an extract from my diary on Monday 8th April, 2013…

Slept badly last night. Panic attacks. It’s only 7 weeks till I leave. It’s becoming a reality now. Jon was looking at locations in Ireland today. Says he’s found a great ravine and a castle.

I got the official go ahead from Piers to work on the tie-in novel of Robots. Started work on the pitch and opening chapters right away.

PS. Jon and I did some good work on the cuts on Saturday. Molinare was empty. We found a quiet nook, ordered some tea and went about cutting thousands of pound from the VFX budget.

Some context: following on from my previous blog where I was asked to write the Robot Overlords novelisation, our producer Piers had to get it signed off by all the other producers. This will become a recurring motif through the making of the film and publication of the book: it could take forever to get a decision because so many people had to sign off on every major choice. It’s not that people were difficult, it’s just that there were so many producers and they’re all busy people.

In order to convince Gollancz that I was up to the job to write the novel, I put together a pitch which included a document outlining the project, a video with pre-viz VFX from the film (still a relatively new and snazzy thing) and about ten thousand words from the opening chapters.

This may have contributed to the late night panic attacks. To be honest, these weren’t anything new. I’d been having them for years, and still get them occasionally (had one just this week!), but I’m sure the big changes just around the corner we’re giving me conniptions. I had arranged to take a six-month sabbatical from work while the film was in production. This would not only allow me the time to write the novel full time, but I could also be more available to the film at its most crucial time.

Molinare is the post production facility just off Carnaby Street and where the film’s editing etc would be finalised. Jon and I were lucky to have it as a place where we could meet and work on tweaks to the script to shave away VFX in order to meet our budget.

Also, as an aside, Margaret Thatcher died on this day. I was never a big fan, but our current leaders make her look almost palatable. Almost…

More diary updates coming soon…

If you’d like to read the Robot Overlords novelisation you can get a signed copy here.
The film is available to download from Apple, Amazon, Sky etc and is currently streaming in Amazon Prime in the UK.

Ten Years Ago Today I Was Asked to Write the Robot Overlords Novelisation

Here’s an extract from my diary dated Friday 5th April, 2013:

Piers has officially asked me to write the film tie-in novel. I ran up to ask Gillian if Gollancz would be interested… they would! It all depends now on a deal being struck (and the film getting a release!), but I might be getting published, along with Claire, in 2014! Speaking of which, the first part of Claire’s advance has been paid: the company’s first bit of income.

So, let’s unpack all that… Piers Tempest was lead producer on Robot Overlords and in the run-up to production there was talk of merch like t-shirts and games, and also a book. I immediately volunteered for it, thinking that this could be a great way to get my first book published. And it made sense for me to pitch it to Gollancz, which is the SF&F imprint at the Orion Publishing Group where I worked.

Me running upstairs to ask Gillian Redfearn (I think she was a commissioning editor at Gollancz at the time. She’s now Deputy Publisher!) if Gollancz would be interested might sound like the deal was done there and then. It certainly wasn’t. In fact, and to their credit, Gollancz were wary of publishing an employee and I all sorts of hoops to jump through yet. But if you’re reading this and thinking ‘Jammy bugger’, then you’re right: I was taking advantage of my position within the company to get my work in front of a publisher. But also bear in mind that I chose to work in publishing precisely for this reason! So much of this business is about who you know, and if Gillian had said ‘No, thank you,’ then I had a long list of alternatives that I could approach. I had hoped that a day like this would come along eventually, and when it did I wasn’t about to let it slip by.

I was a little optimistic on the publication date of the book. The film had a premiere at the London Film Festival in 2014, but wasn’t released until March 2015. The book came out just before in February 2015.

And my wife Claire has beaten me to it in pretty much every field. She got an IMDb credit before me and her books were published before mine! Lottie and Dottie Sow Carrots was published in April 2014.

And the company? I was advised to start a Limited Company to manage the money coming in from our writing. In the UK, if you’re self employed and do your own self-assessment, if you have a good year, followed by a lean year (which is what it turned out to be) you can get walloped by a big tax bill. Having a limited company meant that we could manage the money without having to beg for rebates. And the company is still going ten years later!

Also from my diary that day…

Jon (Wright, director of Robot Overlords) gave me the fright of my life yesterday by sending me a grid with a list of cuts of VFX shots. It looked like we’re cutting back to virtually nothing! But then he explained the colour coding system on the grid. Blue is ‘cut’, orange is ‘cut from the “skimmed” version’ (which we’re preparing for the purposes of closing the deal), but we’re still intending to make the ‘full fat’ version, by chasing that extra £1m. We’re meeting tomorrow to go through the script.

A little context for this: we were still short of meeting our budget by about a million pounds, so we needed to write a version of the script where we could still make the film, but with fewer VFX shots. We had three versions: the ‘full fat’ was as written, the ‘skimmed’ version was with fewer VFX, and the blue version… well, we might as well have made it with stick figures. In the end, I think we shot something that fell between the ‘full fat’ and ‘skimmed’ version. But that’s a diary entry for another day…

Oh, and apparently it snowed that day, too!

If you’d like to read the Robot Overlords novelisation you can get a signed copy here.

The film is available to download from Apple, Amazon, Sky etc and is currently streaming in Amazon Prime in the UK.

Robot Overlords Half Price Sale

Before I wrote about witches, I wrote about Robots and it was eight years to the day when the novelisation of Robot Overlords was published! And so to celebrate, I’m selling the paperback at half price for one week only exclusively at the Woodville Village bookshop. That includes the DVD and Blu Ray bundles, and the bundle with all my books. Click here to grab your copy.

Here’s the film’s trailer to whet your appetite…

Robot Overlords is available on digital download in the all the usual places and is currently streaming in the UK on Amazon Prime.

ROBOT OVERLORDS BOOK FACTS…

  • The paperback includes my diaries while we were making the film.
  • It has a list of the whole cast and crew
  • And an exclusive short story called THE MEDIATOR PROTOTYPE!

The sale is on till Sunday 19th February 2023 at the Woodville Village Bookshop, so grab your copy now while stocks last etc…

Grab a paperback here.
Here’s a paperback with a Blu Ray steelbook.

Robot Overlords DVD and book giveaway on Instagram…

To celebrate the premiere of ROBOT OVERLORDS on Sky Movies UK today (Good Friday), the lovely people over at Gollancz are having a book ‘n’ DVD giveaway.

To enter, just pop over to the post on Instagram (via the link below), ‘like’ and leave a comment. The giveaway closes at 23.59 on 29th March. Good luck!

 

Try the Geek Apocalypse podcast drinking game…

I had good fun chatting with Steven Hesse over at the Geek Apocalypse podcast. We discuss the kinds of people you meet at MCM Comic Cons, 2000 AD, Pat Mills, indie movies vs Hollywood movies, film tie-ins, world building, plot holes, Robot Overlords and all sorts of stuff.

You can stream it here, or if you get your podcasts from iTunes click here.

There will be a video version at some point and I’ll plonk it here when it arrives, in the meantime enjoy and, if you like drinking games, take a shot every time Steven says “super duper fun”, you’ll be plastered before you know it!

The Prologue of the Robot Overlords audiobook is now on Youtube…

I’ve been meaning to do this for ages! The whole of the book’s prologue, featuring an excellent reading by Rupert Degas, is now on Youtube for your delight and delectation. Enjoy…

The full audiobook is available on Audible and iTunes, and if you’re a first time visitor to Audible then you can choose a FREE audiobook, so why not start with an epic story of Robot world domination overthrown by a bunch of kids from the UK? Go on. You know you want to…

Audible UK: http://goo.gl/fzwGCc
Audible.com (USA & elsewhere): http://goo.gl/yPrp67
iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/gb/audiobook/robot-overlords-unabridged/id1006874299

And there’s more about the book here: http://unusuallytallstories.com/robot-overlords-get-the-book/

I’ll be at the MCM Comic Con, London 23-25 October – come and say hi!

MCM Comic Con 23-25 October, Excel – London – Royal Victoria Dock

MCM2015_London_webportal

I’ll be in the Comic Village at the mega MCM Comic Con at the Excel in London. Come along and say hi, ask me about the behind-the-scenes secrets of the Robot Overlords, and get yourself a signed copy of the book (or, if you’ve already got a copy, or a DVD, or Blu Ray, then bring them with you!) this will be your last opportunity before Christmas! (After this I’m having a lie down…)

I’ll be in the company of the splendid author and illustrator of the Union-verse books Mr. Kit Cox (who kindly invited me along with the promise of good times and tea and biscuits).

Now, here comes the complicated bit… I’ll be there all day Friday, Saturday afternoon, and all day Sunday. I won’t be there Saturday morning, because I’ll be here instead…

London Screenwriters’ Festival, Saturday 24th October, 9-10am (Yes! A.M.!).

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Join me for a post-breakfast panel (bring your own croissants!) – should be good fun. Here’s the blurbery…

Robot Overlords is an unusual beast: a British indie family science fiction adventure movie starring Sir Ben Kingsley and Gillian Anderson, with a hefty (for the UK) VFX budget.

Join co-writer Mark Stay to see how this idea evolved from a two-page pitch to a finished film that premiered at the London Film Festival and topped the home entertainment charts.

Topics Mark will cover in-depth include:

Writing pitch documents

Working and writing with a director

Writing for VFX

The perils of British distribution!

Read the script (available in the booking & submissions page) then watch the movie on DVD/Blu-Ray or digital download ahead of the session to get the very most out of this in-depth dissection of one of the most ambitious UK genre films of the year.

For more info click here.