“Archaeologists say they have found a huge ancient settlement used by the people who built Stonehenge.”

Developments at Stonehenge are proving more fascinating with each year. It appears to be unfolding in the shape of an enormous ritual site like the one at nearby Avebury. There’s still a great deal of work going on there so expect a few more text books to be ripped up in the coming months…

The one-line description of a dvd box set on sendit.com:

‘4 movies from Orson Welles, star of The Muppet Movie.’

He really did waste his time making Citizen Kane - film critics’ choice of greatest movie EVER - didn’t he?

Idiots…

(Apart from economic and military superiority, of course.)

America has become the world’s leader because of all nations it has understood and utilised mythology.

Stupid people will tell you that it’s what you say that counts. Clever people will say a picture is worth a thousand words. The best and most effective communication is non-verbal, and it’s something the Founding Fathers understood very well. Oh, they had a way with words too - the US Constitution remains one of the greatest pieces of philosophical writing. But what they really gifted to their new nation was an understanding of why mythology was so vitally important to ancient cultures - because it transmitted simple ideas directly to the subconscious where they could take root and spread.

This kind of communication has unbelievable power. Competing philosophies - however well expressed - simply don’t stand a chance. Marx and Lenin could speak endlessly with eloquence, but the minute one American leader saluted before a fluttering flag, they were doomed.

The mythology of America is now so entrenched we barely recognise it is a mythology. But wherever you are in the world, you know what the US is all about…without discussing it, without even thinking about it. This mythic element is so rooted in the nation, it’s been developed for the last 230 years not by successive governments, but by the people. It’s responsible for the global success of US movies and TV, and food and drink, for the mythology is encoded in every single product, driving that economic power.

Britain understood this in the days of the Empire, but no longer. Hitler grasped it, and understandably Germany will go nowhere near it again. No other nation today is empowered by mythology, for good or bad. The ideas they represent are weak and untethered.

Fantasy readers will appreciate this for fantasy deals in the currency of symbolism. It is dream-fiction, where symbols live and breed, as opposed to the shiny, hard fact-fiction of SF. In ancient times, when all fiction was fantasy fiction, mythological, symbolic communication was the only game in town because it was so effective at passing vital, life-lessons down the generations.

The rapid decline in the cachet of the US Government around the world in recent years is directly attributable to this. Opinion surveys reveal that across Western nations there has been a massive shift towards a negative view of the US leadership - 90% opposed in the UK, across the political spectrum - from what appeared to be an entrenched positive view. Put simply, when you have communicated an idea so effectively and powerfully for two centuries, any actions in opposition to that idea are instantly laid bare. You can’t hide them behind rhetoric and real politik.

But that is a hugely positive thing. The mythology abides. It crushes weaker philosophies, even when those philosophies attempt to wrap the mythology around them. That is why those opinion surveys reveal that the same people who dislike what America is doing in the world are still drawn to the ‘idea’ of America.

(Cross-posted to LJ, MySpace and JoR)

Warren Ellis has contributed to the debate about the slow, sad decline of science fiction as a publishing powerhouse with an interesting notion: that we should stop building ‘castles in the air’, as he says - ie writing about wild and wacky futures - but concentrate on the world around us with an SF writer’s eye for detail and extrapolation…because we are living in a science fictional age. Read more here.

That is, essentially, the premise of the TV series I’ve been developing for the BBC. I think it’s bang on the nose as a way to pull science fiction back into mainstream consciousness. But quite what all those people who love stories about Big Machines will make of it is a different matter.

For anyone having trouble accessing the forum at markchadbourn.net, it was hacked last night. Web boss Ariel will have a new, security-conscious forum up-and-running in no time so keep checking back over the next day or two.

At the moment, I’m looking at a completely new forum rather than a re-build of the old one, which frankly had reached the end of its shelf life in technological terms. That means you will probably have to re-join, but at least it wil make life more difficult for the spammers.

My publisher, Victor Gollancz, has started a new email newsletter which will give you the chance to win lots of swag, find out advance news about fantasy, SF and horror books and get exclusive interviews and extracts.

Sign up for it here.

And a happy New Year to you all. I am now officially out of hibernation.