David Quantick
Author of All My Colors
About the Author
David Quantick is an Emmy-winning television writer and the author of the best-selling writing manual How To Write Everything. He has written for television in the USA (Veep) and the UK (The Thick Of It, Brass Eye, Harry Hill's TV Burp), and is also a radio broadcaster (The Blagger's Guide, 52 show more First Impressions), author (The Mule, Sparks) and a journalist who's written for over 50 different publications, from the Daily Telegraph to The Dandy. show less
Works by David Quantick
Associated Works
The Book of Extraordinary Impossible Crimes and Puzzling Deaths: The Best New Original Stories of the Genre (Mystery &… (2020) — Contributor — 9 copies
NME Presents The Return Of Apocryphal Now — Contributor — 1 copy
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Birthdate
- 1961-05-4
- Gender
- male
- Nationality
- England
- Birthplace
- Wortley, Yorkshire, England
- Short biography
- David Quantick started out freelancing for City Limits, then went to the NME and later to Q. He is now writing for Word. Along the way he also wrote or writes for Smash Hits, Spin, Blender, some Fleet Street and of course The Oldie. He co-wrote Eddie Izzard's Dress To Kill with Eddie, and is responsible for some small rock books, most recently Revolution: The Making Of The Beatles' White Album. He also writes comedy on TV and radio, and appeared at Edinburgh and all over in Lloyd Cole Knew My Father with Andrew Collins and Stuart Maconie. [from rocksbackpages.com]
Members
Reviews
This review first appeared on scifiandscary.com. I received a copy of the book from Titan Books for review consideration.
‘All My Colors’ is a weird blend of horror and comedy that manages to work a lot better than books that mix those genres sometimes do. I often find that comedy horror veers too far one way or the other, being either funny but not scary or creepy but with jokes that fall flat. David Quantick’s book steers a path straight down the middle and is both laugh out loud funny and genuinely mysterious and unsettling. Given that Quantick is part of the team who wrote TV shows ‘The Thick Of It’ and ‘Veep’, I expected the jokes. What I didn’t count on was him having such a talent for horror.
The book is the tale of a failed writer in 1970s middle America who finds that no-one else can remember a famous novel which he knows word for word. Seizing the opportunity, he rewrites the book. Given that this is a horror novel, his actions set in motion a suitably horrific sequence of events that build up nicely as the book progresses.
The premise is pure Twilight Zone, and the 70s setting makes it read a little like a lost Stephen King novel, only much, much funnier. It never quite reaches King levels of terror, but it does have some memorably nasty imagery and a denouement that is lingeringly creepy. It also features the King trope of the alcoholic writer. To my mind, though, it’s a better book about writing than anything King has penned. It perfectly captures the mystery of the creative impulse and the way in which a work of art ceases to belong to its creator once it is finished.
Most of all, though, ‘All My Colors’ is a really fun read. It’s engaging, gripping and hilarious by turns. I couldn’t put it down and ploughed through it in a day. If you like your horror smart, inventive and witty I can’t recommend it highly enough.
… (more)
‘All My Colors’ is a weird blend of horror and comedy that manages to work a lot better than books that mix those genres sometimes do. I often find that comedy horror veers too far one way or the other, being either funny but not scary or creepy but with jokes that fall flat. David Quantick’s book steers a path straight down the middle and is both laugh out loud funny and genuinely mysterious and unsettling. Given that Quantick is part of the team who wrote TV shows ‘The Thick Of It’ and ‘Veep’, I expected the jokes. What I didn’t count on was him having such a talent for horror.
The book is the tale of a failed writer in 1970s middle America who finds that no-one else can remember a famous novel which he knows word for word. Seizing the opportunity, he rewrites the book. Given that this is a horror novel, his actions set in motion a suitably horrific sequence of events that build up nicely as the book progresses.
The premise is pure Twilight Zone, and the 70s setting makes it read a little like a lost Stephen King novel, only much, much funnier. It never quite reaches King levels of terror, but it does have some memorably nasty imagery and a denouement that is lingeringly creepy. It also features the King trope of the alcoholic writer. To my mind, though, it’s a better book about writing than anything King has penned. It perfectly captures the mystery of the creative impulse and the way in which a work of art ceases to belong to its creator once it is finished.
Most of all, though, ‘All My Colors’ is a really fun read. It’s engaging, gripping and hilarious by turns. I couldn’t put it down and ploughed through it in a day. If you like your horror smart, inventive and witty I can’t recommend it highly enough.
… (more)
I received an e-book ARC copy of Night Train from NetGalley and Titan Books in return for my honest review, which follows below. I thank both for this opportunity.
The opening scene gives us promises of a tense and secretive read. A person wakes up confused of who they are and where they are, not a great way to to start the day. Fighting her way to a door, she becomes aware that she is stuck on a moving train, not much of an improvement in my opinion. She begins moving in the direction she hopes will lead to the front of the train, passing through train cars carefully and fearfully. She meets another person, a man who claims to have been surviving on the train for more than a month, if his calculations could be in any way correct.
Each train car that they enter is different, some are buffet cars that offer limited types of food, while others range from common train cars to outright bizarre configurations. The windows will sometimes show explosions, ash raining down like snow, or lakes of fire below the tracks. None of this helps them remember. And the story continues from there but I don’t want to give away spoilers.
So the obvious comparisons for me are the graphic novel, turned movie, soon to be television series Snowpiercer and the horror movie series Cube. There are traps and wrong choices to be made while traveling the train length, which is reminiscent of the Cube franchise. In those people would wake up in a room, usually with some memory loss, and have to find their way out of connecting rooms. Some are safe to enter, some are booby trapped, there was some math involved in solving it, or trick to making it through safely. They were fun, slightly campy movies, with unique ways to mess people up. Snowpiercer was an apocalyptic world setting, with a train that runs a continuous track, stuffed chock full with the surviving humanity. But class snobbery still exists, because why not?!, so there are poor people living in filth eating cricket bricks and rich people eating sushi and drinking booze.
This book felt like it took the middle road in plot from these two, a blend that was unique yet familiar. What fell a little flat for me was the character dialogue, at times it seemed like it tried to be jocular but didn’t read sincere. It also could be awkward when more than two people would be talking, it could become difficult to tell who was speaking. There was also a stretch in the last part of the book where a few sentences seemed to be out of place, making the story feel fractured. Unless it was on purpose. I think it may be a printing error, it may be fixed by the release date. An example without using actual text; a question would be answered in paragraph one, without a speaking source given, but the question would not be asked until paragraph two. It made it difficult to read for several pages.
I thought it was an interesting story, I give it 3 stars because I enjoyed most of my time reading it. I would suggest it to people to read, my issue with the dialogue is my issue, others may not agree with me of course. Some of the later chapters felt clunky and out of sorts, but again, I don’t know if that will be present in the final release, or if it is a reading style I just didn’t get.… (more)
The opening scene gives us promises of a tense and secretive read. A person wakes up confused of who they are and where they are, not a great way to to start the day. Fighting her way to a door, she becomes aware that she is stuck on a moving train, not much of an improvement in my opinion. She begins moving in the direction she hopes will lead to the front of the train, passing through train cars carefully and fearfully. She meets another person, a man who claims to have been surviving on the train for more than a month, if his calculations could be in any way correct.
Each train car that they enter is different, some are buffet cars that offer limited types of food, while others range from common train cars to outright bizarre configurations. The windows will sometimes show explosions, ash raining down like snow, or lakes of fire below the tracks. None of this helps them remember. And the story continues from there but I don’t want to give away spoilers.
So the obvious comparisons for me are the graphic novel, turned movie, soon to be television series Snowpiercer and the horror movie series Cube. There are traps and wrong choices to be made while traveling the train length, which is reminiscent of the Cube franchise. In those people would wake up in a room, usually with some memory loss, and have to find their way out of connecting rooms. Some are safe to enter, some are booby trapped, there was some math involved in solving it, or trick to making it through safely. They were fun, slightly campy movies, with unique ways to mess people up. Snowpiercer was an apocalyptic world setting, with a train that runs a continuous track, stuffed chock full with the surviving humanity. But class snobbery still exists, because why not?!, so there are poor people living in filth eating cricket bricks and rich people eating sushi and drinking booze.
This book felt like it took the middle road in plot from these two, a blend that was unique yet familiar. What fell a little flat for me was the character dialogue, at times it seemed like it tried to be jocular but didn’t read sincere. It also could be awkward when more than two people would be talking, it could become difficult to tell who was speaking. There was also a stretch in the last part of the book where a few sentences seemed to be out of place, making the story feel fractured. Unless it was on purpose. I think it may be a printing error, it may be fixed by the release date. An example without using actual text; a question would be answered in paragraph one, without a speaking source given, but the question would not be asked until paragraph two. It made it difficult to read for several pages.
I thought it was an interesting story, I give it 3 stars because I enjoyed most of my time reading it. I would suggest it to people to read, my issue with the dialogue is my issue, others may not agree with me of course. Some of the later chapters felt clunky and out of sorts, but again, I don’t know if that will be present in the final release, or if it is a reading style I just didn’t get.… (more)
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By a well-known TV writer. Funny but ultimately implausible even on its own terms. The future tech works just well enough to drive the plot.